Part 4

I wonder if you’ve reached the point yet where you don’t think that dying matters? I suspect you have. You remember what Roosevelt said after seeing his last son off, “If he comes back he’ll have to explain to me the why and how.” That’s the Japanese spirit—honour demands when a man returns from battle that he can give good reasons why he is not dead. Others, his friends and comrades, are dead; how does he happen to be living? In that connection I think of Charlie S., lying somewhere in the mud of Ypres, with an insignificant cross above his head. He won a dozen decorations which were not given him. He had a baby whom he had only seen once. He was my pal. Why should I live, while he is dead? I can always hear him singing in the mess in a pleasant tenor voice. We used to share our affections and our troubles. He was what the Canadians call “a white man.” I can’t see myself living in comfort while he is dead. It’s odd the things one remembers about a man. We got the idea in the Somme that oil on the feet would prevent them from becoming frozen. One time when Charlie was going up forward we hadn’t any oil, so he used brilliantine. It smelt of violets, and we made the highest of game of him. Poor old Charlie, he doesn’t feel the cold now!

I’m afraid I’ve written a lot of rot in this letter—I’ve talked far too much of a host of things which are better left unsaid. But I had to—I wanted to make quite certain that you wouldn’t blame me for refusing safety. I’ve relieved myself immensely by getting all of this off my chest.

XXII

London

December 17, 1917

I’m waiting for Eric, and, while waiting, propose to tell you the story of my past few days. I think when you’ve come to the end of my account you’ll agree that I’ve been mixing my drinks considerably with regard to the personalities whose acquaintance I have made.

On Friday evening I was invited to dinner by Lieutenant C., the American Navy man with whom I crossed in November. I met—whom do you think?—George Grossmith, Leslie Henson, Julia James, Madge Saunders, and Lord C————.

I may say that Lord C————is not a member of the Gaiety Company, though I seem to have included him. The occasion was really the weekly dinner given by the American Officers’ Club; the Gaiety Company was there to entertain. I think it is typical of England’s attitude towards the American Army that people from such different walks of life should have been present to do the U.S.A. honour. Lord C————is a splendid type of old-fashioned courtier, with a great, kindly, bloodhound face. He had ensigns and officers of whatsoever rank brought to him, and spoke to them with the fine manly equality of the true-bred aristocrat. It was amusing to see the breezy American boys quite unembarrassed, most of them unaware of Lord C————'s political eminence, exchanging views in the friendliest of fashions, while the old gentleman, keeping seated, leaning forward on his stick with one hand resting attentively on a young fellow’s arm, expressed his warm appreciation of America’s eagerness.

Grossmith was in the uniform our boys wear—that of a lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. Leslie Henson is now a mechanic in the motor-transport by day and a Gaiety star in the evenings. He says that it costs him much money to cure the ache which the Army gives to his back—but he continues to do his “bit” by day and to amuse Tommies home on leave in the evenings.

Next day, Saturday, I went down to Bath to meet Raemaekers, the Dutch cartoonist. Mr. Lane was our host. Raemaekers is a great man. On the journey I tried to picture him. I saw him as a pale-faced man, with lank black hair and a touch of the Jew about him. I rather expected to find him worn and slightly more than middle-aged, with nervous hands and hollow eyes. I reminded myself that of the world’s artists, he was the only one who had risen to the sheerness of the occasion. He expresses the conscience of the aloof cosmopolitan as regards Germany’s war-methods. England, incurably good-humoured, has only Bairnsfather’s comic portrayals of Old Bill to place beside this indignant Dutchman’s moral hatred of Hun cruelty. From the station I went to the Bath Club; there I met not at all what I had imagined. He looks like a Frans Hals burgher, comfortable, with a high complexion, a small pointed beard, chestnut hair, and searching grey eyes. His charity of appearance belies him, for his eyes and mouth have a terrific purpose. His hands are the hands of a fighting man which crush. You would pass him in the street as unremarkable unless he looked at you—his eyes are daggers which stop you dead.

There were four of us at lunch—he sat at my right and we talked like a river in flood. He’s just back from America, thrilled by the Americans’ unimpassioned, lawful thoroughness. He had found something akin to his own temperament in the nation’s genius—the same capacity to brush aside facetiousness in a crisis, and to attain a Hebrew prophet’s faculty for hatred. One doesn’t want to laugh when women lie dead in the ash-pits of Belgium. I have been with him many hours and have scarcely seen him smile, and yet his face is kindly. As you know, the Kaiser had set a price upon his head. His death would mean more to the Hun than the destruction of many British Divisions. He has pilloried the Kaiser’s beastliness for all time. When future ages want to know what the Kaiser said to Christ, they will find it all in the thousand Raemaekers’ sketches. Traps have been laid for his capture from time to time. Submarines have been dispatched with orders to take him alive. He knows what awaits him if such plans should meet with success—a lingering, tortured death; consequently he travels armed, and has promised his wife to blow his brains out the moment he is captured. We talked of many things—of the Hague and H. among other things. He knew the P.’., and drew a sketch of Mr. P. on the tablecloth with his pencil. I tried to purchase the tablecloth that I might send it to America, but the club secretary was before me.

In the afternoon I went to the railway-station and spoke with a porter who was pushing a barrow—Henry Chappell, who wrote “The Day”—the first war-poet of 1914. As luck would have it, it was Saturday, the day upon which John Lane had brought out his volume of poems; it was rather pathetic to find him carrying on with his humble task on the proudest afternoon of his life. I told him how I had seen his poem pasted up in prominent places all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He smiled in a patient fashion, and said that he had heard about it. I understand that he made one hundred pounds out of this poem and gave it all to the Red Cross. A gentleman, if you want to find one! I asked him if he didn’t look forward to promotion now. He shook his head gravely—he liked portering. At parting I shook his hand, but, when I had dropped it, he touched his cap—and touched my heart in the doing of it.

On Sunday I was back in town. Eric turned up this morning, looking gallant and smiling, with an exceedingly glad eye. He’s just the same as he always was, discontented with his job because he thinks it’s too safe and trying to find one more dangerous. We’re going to have a great time together, unless I get my marching orders from the Foreign Office.

I lunched with Raemaekers at Claridge’s today and have just come back. He’s an elemental moralist, encased in a burgher’s exterior. He affects me with a sense of restrained power. One is surprised to see him eating like other men. How I wish that I could detest as he detests! And yet he has heart in plenty. He told me a story of a French battalion going out to die. The last soldier stepped out of the ranks towards his colonel, who was weeping for his men who would not come back. Flinging his arms about his commanding officer, he kissed him and said, “Do not fear, my Colonel; we shall not disgrace you.” He has an eye for magnanimity, that man.

XXIII

London

December 31, 1917

This foggy London morning early your three letters from 5th to 18th December arrived. I jumped out of bed, lit the gas, retreated under the blankets, and devoured them, leaning on my elbow.

This is the last day of the old year—a quaint old year it has been for all of us. I commenced it quite reconciled to the thought that it would be my last; and here I am, while poor Charlie S. and so many other fellows whom I loved are dead. It only shows how very foolish it is to anticipate trouble, for the last twelve months have been the very best and richest of my life. If I were to die now, I should feel that I had at least done something with my handful of years.

I’d like to have another glimpse of America now that in the face of reverses she has grown sterner. It’s certain at last that there’ll be a lot of American boys who won’t come back. They’re going to be real soldiers, going to go over the top and to endure all the fierce heroisms of an attack. It’s cruel to say so, but it’s better for America’s soul that she should have her taste of battle after all the shouting.

On Saturday F. R. came to see us. He’s home on leave. He and P. and I sitting down together after all the years that have intervened since we were at Oxford together! As F. expressed it, blinking through his spectacles, “Doesn’t it seem silly that I should be dressed up like this and that you should be dressed like that?” He went out in January as a second lieutenant, and returned commanding his battalion. God moves in a mysterious way, doesn’t He? One can’t help wondering why some should “go west” at once and others should be spared. Bob H., who was also with us at Oxford, as you will remember, lasted exactly six days. The first day in the trenches he was wounded, but not sufficiently to go out. The sixth day he was killed.

Did I tell you that there’s a nerve hospital near here crowded with nerve-shattered babies on one floor and nerve-shattered Tommies on the next? The babies are all dressed in red and the Tommies in the usual hospital blue. Each day the shell-shocked chaps go up to visit the children; the moment the door opens and the blue figures appear, the little red crowd stretch out their arms and cry, “My soldier! My soldier!” for each Tommy has his own particular pet. When a child gets a nervous attack, it is often only the one particular soldier who can do the soothing. Who’d think that men fresh from the carnage could be so tender! And people say that war makes men brutal. Humph!

XXIV

A French Port

January 3, 1918

Here I am again in France and extraordinarily glad to be here. I feel that I’m again a part of the game—I couldn’t feel that while I was in London. I landed here this morning and arrive in Paris to-night. The crossing was one of the quietest. I know a lot of people didn’t lie down at all, and still others slept with their clothes on. Like a sensible fellow I crept into my berth at 9 p.m., and slept like a top till morning. If we’d been submarined I shouldn’t have known it.

I feel tremendously elated by the thought of this new adventure, and intend to make the most of it. As you know, nothing would have persuaded me to delay my return to the Front except an opportunity for doing work of these dimensions. I really do believe that I have the chance of a lifetime to do work of international importance. I want to make the Americans feel that they have become our kinsmen through the magnitude of their endeavour. And I want to make the British shake off their reticence in applauding the magnanimity of America’s enthusiasm.

It’s been snowing here; but I don’t feel cold because of the warmth inside me. The place where I am now is one of the pleasure-haunts which Eric and I visited together in that golden summer of long ago. Little did I think that I should be here next time in such belligerent attire and on such an errand. Life’s a queer kaleidoscope. But, oh, for such another summer, with the long secure peace of July days, and the whole green world to wander! One doubts whether El Dorado will ever come again.

I see the girl-soldiers of England everywhere nowadays. A reinforcing draft crossed over with me on the steamer—high complexions and laughing faces, trim uniforms and tiny ankles. They’re brave! It’s a pity we can’t give them a chance of just one crack at the Huns. But they have to stop behind the lines and drive lorries, and be good girls, and beat typewriters. Their little girl-officers are mighty dignified. What a gallant world! I wouldn’t have it otherwise.

For me the New Year is starting well. I face it in higher spirits than any of its predecessors. And well I may, for I didn’t expect to be alive to greet 1918. I hope you are all just as much on the crest of the wave in your hopes and anticipations. Nothing can be worse than some of the experiences that lie behind—and that’s some comfort. Nothing can be more chivalrous than the opportunities which lie before us.

So here’s good-bye to you from France once again.

XXV

Paris January 8, 1918

Here I am in Paris, starting on my new adventure of writing the story of what the Americans are doing in the war. I left England on 2nd January, which was a Wednesday, and arrived here Thursday evening. As you know, while I was in the Front line I had very little idea of what France at war was like. One crossed from England, clambered on a military train with all the windows smashed, had a cold night journey, and found himself at once among the shell-holes. I was very keen on seeing what Paris was like; now that I’ve seen it, it’s very difficult to describe. It’s very much the same as it always was—only while its atmosphere was once champagne, now it is a strong, still wine. As in England, only to a greater extent, women are doing the work of men. The streets are full of the wounded—not the wounded with well-fitted artificial limbs that you see in London, but with ordinary wooden stumps, etc. Our English wounded are always gay and laughing—determined to treat the war as a humorous episode to the end. The French wounded are grave, afflicted, and ordinary. I think the Frenchman, with an emotional honesty of which we are incapable, has from the first viewed the war as a colossal Calvary, and has seen it against the historic skyline of a travailing world. Never by speech or gesture has he disguised the fact that he, as an individual, is engaged in a fore-ordained and unparalleled adventure of sacrifice. The Englishman, self-conscious of his own heroic gallantry, cloaks his fineness with pretended indifference and has succeeded in deceiving the world. Our sportsmanship in the face of death impresses more complex nations as irreligion. So while London is outwardly gayer than ever, Paris has a stiff upper lip, a look of sternness in its eyes, and very little laughter on its mouth. By nine-thirty in the evening every restaurant is closed, and the streets are empty till the soldiers on leave troop out from the theatres.

As for the food, I have seen no shortage in France as yet. You can get plenty of butter and sugar, whereas in London margarine is rare and sugar is doled out. The talk of France being ex hausted is all rubbish; you can feel the muscles of a great nation struggling the moment you land.

I have had a most kindly and helpful reception from the American Press Division. They have realized with the usual American quickness of mind the importance of what I propose to do. One of their officers starts out with me to-night on my first tour of military activities. It will take about five days. I then return to Paris to write up what I have seen, and afterwards set out again in a new direction. If I take the proper advantage of my opportunities, I ought to get an amazingly interesting lot of material.

Saturday I was lucky enough to secure a car, and went the round of my introductions, to the British Embassy and your friends from Newark.

I’ve been to two theatres. The audiences were composed for the most part of soldiers on leave—American, British, Canadian, Australian, Belgian, French, with the merest sprinkling of civilians. Sunday I walked through the Luxembourg, most of the galleries of which are closed. Afterwards I walked in the Gardens and watched the Parisians sliding on the ice. For the moment they forgot they were at war, and became children. There were little boys and girls, soldiers with their sweethearts, fat old men and women, all running and pushing and sliding and falling and chattering. I thought of Trilby with her grave, kind eyes. Then I walked down the Boule Miche to Notre Dame, where women were praying for their dead.

To-day Paris is under snow, and again the child spirit has asserted itself. Soldiers and sailors are pelting one another with snowballs in the streets, and Jupiter continues to pluck his geese and send their feathers drifting down the sky.

This time last year I was marching into action with temperature of 104 degrees, and you were reaching London, wondering whether I was truly coming on leave. A queer year it has been; in spite of all our anticipations to the contrary, we’re still alive. I wish we were to meet again this year, and we may. We know so little. As Whitcomb Riley says in complete acceptance of human fortuitousness, “No child knows when it goes to sleep.”

XXVI

Paris

January 13, 1918

About an hour ago I got into Paris from my first trip. I’ve been where M. and I spent our splendid summer so many years ago, only now the river is spanned with ice and the country is a grey-sage colour. From what I can see the Americans are preparing as if for a war that is going to last for thirty years. America is in the war literally to her last man and her last dollar; when her hour comes to strike, she will be like a second England in the fight.

I made my tour with an officer who was with Hoover three years in Belgium, and who before that was a student in Paris. As a consequence, he speaks French like a native. Every detail of my trip was arranged ahead by telephone and telegram; automobiles were waiting. There is no pretence about the American Army. My rank as lieutenant is, of course, quite inadequate to the task I have undertaken. But the American high officer carries no side or swank. Having produced my credentials, I am seated at the mess beside generals and allowed to ask any questions, however searching. Everyone I have met as yet is hats off to the English and the French—they go out of their way to make comparisons which are in their own disfavour and unjust to themselves. I have been making a particular study of their transport facilities and their artillery training. Both are being carried out on a magnificently thorough scale. I undertake to assert that they will have as fine artillery as can be found on the Western Front by the time they are ready. I certainly never saw such painstaking and methodical training.

As you know, the phase of the war that I am particularly interested in is the closeness of international relations that will result when the war is ended. The tightening of bonds between the French, Americans and English can be daily witnessed and felt. The Americans are loud in their praise of their French and British instructors—the instructors are equally proud of their pupils. On the street, in hotels and trains, the three races hobnob together.

I came back to-day with a French artillery and cavalry officer—splendid fellows. We had fought together on the Somme, we discovered, and had occupied the same Front, though at separate times, at Vimy. The artilleryman was a young French noble, and, as only noblemen can these days, had a car waiting for him at the station He insisted on taking me to my hotel, and we parted the most excellent friends.

I have two days in which to write up my experiences, and on Tuesday I shall set out on a tour in a new direction. So much I am able to tell you; the rest will be in my book when it is published.

This time last year we were together in London—how long ago it seems and sounds! Years are longer and of more value than they once were. This year I’m here. Next year where? This time next year the war will not be ended, I’m certain, nor even the year after that, perhaps. The more we feel our strength, the more we are called upon to suffer, the sterner will become our terms.

It’s nearly eleven, my dear ones, and time that I was asleep. I have Henri Bordeaux’s story of The Last Days of Fort Vaux beside me—it’s most heroic reading. What shall we do when the gates of heroism grow narrow and peace has been declared? Something spiritual will have gone out of life when the challenge of the horrible is ended.

XXVII

Paris

January 19, 1918

I’m expecting to go to American Headquarters on Tuesday and to see something of work immediately behind the lines. I find what I am doing exceptionally interesting, and hope to do a good book on it.

Wherever one goes the best men one meets are Hoover’s disciples from Belgium. They tell extraordinary stories of the heroism of the patriots whom they knew there—people by the score who duplicated Miss Cavell’s courage and paid the penalty. Their experience of Hun brutality has somehow dulled their sense of horror—they speak of it as something quite commonplace and to be expected.

On Friday I saw Miss Holt’s work for the blind. She bears out for France all that I have said about the amazing sharing of the wounded in England. One man in her care was not only totally blind, but he had also lost both arms. In the hospital there were men less grievously mutilated than himself, who hardly knew how to endure their loss. For the sake of the cheeriness of his example, he used to go round the ward with gifts of cigarettes, which he almost thought he lit for the men himself, for he used to say to Miss Holt before undertaking such a journey, “You are my hands.”

We, in England, and still less in America, have never approached the loathing which is felt for the Boche in France. Men spit as they utter his name, as though the very word was foul in the mouth. Wherever you go lonely men or women are pointed out to you; all of his or her family are behind the German lines. We think we have suffered, but we have not sounded one fathom of this depth of agony. On every hand I hear that the French Army is stronger than ever, better equipped and more firm in its moral. As an impassioned Frenchman said to me yesterday, his eyes blazing as he banged the table, “They shall not pass. I say so—and I am France.”

In the face of all this I do not wonder that the French misunderstand the easy good-humour with which we English go out to die. In their eyes and with the throbbing of their wounds, this war is a matter for neither good-humour nor sportsmanship, but only for the indignant, inarticulate wrath of a Hebrew god. If every weapon was taken from their hands and all the young men were gone, with clenched fists those who were left would smite and smite to the last. It is fitting that they should feel this way, but I’m glad that our English boys can still laugh while they die.

And now I’m going out on the Boulevards to get lunch.

XXVIII

Paris

January 30, 1918

Yesterday on my return to Paris I found all your letters awaiting me—a real big pile which took me over an hour to read. The latest was written on New Year’s Day in the throes of coal shortage and intense cold. Really it seems absurd that you should be starved for warmth in America. Last week I was within eighteen kilometres of the Front line staying in a hotel as luxurious as the Astor, with plenty of heat and a hot bath at midnight in a private bathroom. All the appointments and comforts were perfect; booming through the night came the perpetual muttering of the guns. There were troops of all kinds marching up for an attack; the villages were packed, but there was no disorganization.