Part 3

There is the same naturalness and spirit of fellowship between members of various churches. Many lasting friendships have been formed between chaplains of differing communions. There has been no change of creed but something greater, a change of spirit. They have been touched by the common spirit, and have lived and worked in free and happy fellowship. On my last Sunday in a hospital in France, the chaplain, a canon of the Church of England, invited me to read the lesson at the morning parade service, and to administer the wine at Holy Communion. This I did; and a colonel who was present stayed behind to express to us both the pleasure which had been given to him by the sight of Anglican and Methodist churchmen serving together at the Lord's Table.

To a chaplain not a little of the glamour of the Front is found in this warm fellowship between men of differing creeds and varying religious communions. We have not knocked down our garden walls but we have taken off the cut glass that had been cemented on them by our fathers; and now we can lean over and talk to our neighbors. We have already found that our neighbors are human beings, and quite normal. The chief difference between us seems to be that while one has an obsession for roses the other has an obsession for dahlias. On pansies, sweet peas and chrysanthemums we seem equally keen and exchange plants. A Roman Catholic officer who had been appointed to the Ulster Division told me that though he was received coldly at first, he had not been with the Division more than a few weeks when every officer in his regiment, and every soldier in his company, accepted him as cordially as if he were a Protestant. He was from Dublin and they from Belfast, but they did not allow it to make any difference, and feelings of the warmest loyalty and friendship sprang up. His Tommies would fight to the death by his side, as readily as around any Ulsterman; and he was just as popular in the officers' mess. When, he said, it passed the Irish Guards or any other Roman Catholic regiment, his regiment would sing some provoking song about "hanging the Pope with a good strong rope," and the Dublin regiment would reply with some song equally obnoxious and defiant; but whereas, in peace time, the songs would have caused a free fight to the accompaniment of bloodshed, now it caused nothing worse than laughter. The songs were just a bit of teasing such as every regiment likes to regale another with--perhaps, too, a common memory of the dear country they have left behind. The men of Belfast and the men of Dublin have learned to respect and value one another. They know that in a scrap with the enemy they can count on one another to the last drop of blood, for, whether from North or South, the Irish are "bonnie fighters." Of such are the miracles at the Front.

Most of all, perhaps, the glamour of the Front is found in the nobility to which common men rise. An artillery officer told me that he had in his battery a soldier who seemed utterly worthless. He was dirty in all his ways, and unreliable in character. In despair they made him sanitary orderly, that is, the scavenger whose duty it was to remove all refuse. One night the officer wanted a man to go on a perilous errand and there were few men available. Instantly this lad volunteered. The officer looked at him in amazement, and with a reverence born on the instant. "No," he thought, "I will not let him go and get killed. I'll go myself." He told the lad so, and disappointment was plainly written on his features.

"But, you'll let me come with you, sir?" he replied.

"Why should two risk their lives," asked the officer, "when one can do the job?"

"But you might get wounded, sir," was the quick response; and they went together.

An Irish officer told me of one man who seemed bad from top to toe. All the others had some redeeming feature but this man appeared not to possess any. He used the filthiest language and was dirty in his habits and dress. He was drunken and stole the officers' whisky out of the mess. He was unchaste and had been in the hospital with venereal disease; and neither as man nor soldier was there anything good to say of him. The regiment was sent to France, and in due time took its place in the trenches; and then appeared in this man something that had never risen to the surface before. Wherever there were wounded and dying men he proved himself to be the noblest man in the regiment. When a man fell in No Man's Land, he was over the parapet in the twinkling of an eye to bring him in. No barrage could keep him away from the wounded. It was a sort of passion with him that nothing could restrain. To save others he risked his life scores of times. In rest-billets he would revert to some of his evil ways, but in the trenches he was the Greatheart of the regiment and, though he did not receive it, he earned the Victoria Cross over and over again. There is a glamour at the Front that holds the heart with an irresistible grip. In the light of War's deathly fires the hearts of men are revealed and the black sheep often get their chance. Life is intense and deep and men are drawn together by a common peril. They find the things that unite and forget the things that separate.

"We haven't long to live," said Captain Ball joyfully, "but we live well while we _do_ live," and in those words he expressed the glamour of the Front. Ball found, as thousands of his comrades-in-arms had found, that

"One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name."

*IV*

*A WHITE HANDKERCHIEF*

In his _History of the Somme Campaign_ John Buchan quotes, from an official report, an incident which, though I have tried, I cannot get my imagination to believe. Probably the incident is a true one but, unfortunately for me, my mind will not let it in. I cannot visualize it and the report is turned from the door as an impostor. The report states that in a certain attack our aeroplanes fired on the Germans in their trenches and that the enemy waved white handkerchiefs in token of surrender. Without the slightest difficulty I can imagine all except the white handkerchiefs. Where did they get them to wave? Men in the firing trenches don't carry anything so conspicuous as white handkerchiefs. To draw one out in a thoughtless moment might bring a sniper's bullet, and there are risks enough without inviting more. I doubt if in any English regiment two white handkerchiefs could be found: and I have little expectation that more could be found among the enemy. Furthermore, it is questionable, at this stage of the war, if a white handkerchief would be regarded as a sign, of surrender. It might be taken as a taunt.

There is nothing more remarkable in the war than the psychological change that has been wrought in white. A white feather used to be the badge of cowardice and a white flag the token of surrender. It is not so now. White has taken on a peculiar sacredness. If a new medal were to be struck of the same high value as the Victoria Cross it would probably be given a white ribbon, as the other has a red or (for the navy) blue. This change in the moral significance of white was brought home to me by an incident in a billet. I had gone to a barn to give the men some shirts and socks that had been sent to me. I stood on the steps, and like an auctioneer, offered my goods for acceptance. "Who wants a shirt? Who a scarf? Who wants this pair of mittens? Who a pair of socks?" Hands shot up at each question, and the fun grew fast and furious. Then I drew out and held up a white handkerchief. "A-ah! A-ah!" they cried wistfully in chorus. For a moment they stood gazing at it and forgot to raise their hands towards it; then, with a single movement, every hand shot up. Unwittingly I had stirred them to the depths; and I felt sorry for them.

The Magic Carpet of Baghdad is not a fiction after all. In the twinkling of an eye my white handkerchief had carried every boy and man to his home, and placed him by the fireside. I saw it in their eyes and heard it in the sadness and wistfulness of their voices as they ejaculated "A-ah!" They had not seen a white handkerchief for months. The last they saw was at home. A vision of home flashed before their minds and they were back in the dear old days of peace when they used white handkerchiefs and khaki ones were unknown to them. If in battle they were to see Germans waving white handkerchiefs, I think it would make them savage and unwilling to give quarter. They would think the enemy was taunting them with all they had lost. And they would be maddened by the thought that here were the very men who, by their war-lust, had caused them to lose it. For a German to wave a white handkerchief before a British soldier would be as dangerous as flaunting a red flag before a bull. It would bring death rather than pity. Anything of pure white is rare at the front, and it has gradually taken on a meaning it never held before. About the only white thing we have is the paper we write home on, and that use of the color helps to sanctify it in the shrine of the heart.

In the army it is a term of supreme praise to call a man _white_. When you say a comrade is a "_white man_" there is no more to be said. It is worth more than the Victoria Cross with its red ribbon, for it includes gallantry, and adds to it goodness. A man must be brave to be called white and he must be generous, noble and good. To reach whiteness is a great achievement. To be dubbed white is, in the army, like being dubbed knight at King Arthur's Court or canonized saint in the Church. He stands out among a soldier's comrades distinct as a white handkerchief among khaki ones.

I don't know where the term came from, but, wherever it may have tarried on the way, I think its footprints could be traced back to the Book of Revelation for its starting place. In the first chapter we have a picture of Christ as the first "White Man"--"His Head and His Hairs were white like wool, as white as snow." In the second chapter His faithful followers are given "a white stone, and in the stone a new name written." Is not the new name "White man"? In the third chapter we read of "a few names even in Sardis which have _not defiled their garments_; and they shall _walk with Me in white_; for they are worthy." There, too, the Laodiceans are counseled to buy "white raiment." In the fourth chapter we see the four and twenty elders, sitting around the throne under the rainbow arch, "clothed in white raiment." In the sixth chapter we have the crowned King going "forth conquering, and to conquer" and He is sitting on "a white horse," that is, He uses "white" instruments to carry out His conquests. Death, in the same chapter, rides on a "pale" horse, but not a "white" one. Under the altar were the souls of the martyrs, "And white robes were given unto every one of them." And surely the climax is reached when we read in the seventh chapter that "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes." So striking was the scene that one of the elders asked, "What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?" And the answer is given, "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God." In the army white has come back to its ancient significance. The brave and noble martyrs of the early Church were given "white robes" and in the army to-day the brave and pure wear "white robes" in the eyes of their comrades. When Clifford Reed was killed by a shell at his Regimental Aid Post his colonel wrote of him that he was the "whitest man" he had ever known. He had done more than wear "the white flower of a _blameless_ life." His virtues were positive, not merely negative. He wore a "white _robe_"; not a mere speck of white such as a white flower in a buttonhole would appear. White is a positive color, not a negative. Reed was more than "blameless," he was "white and all white." To our soldiers a white handkerchief speaks of home, and a "white man" speaks of honor and heroism and heaven.

*V*

*THE SONGS OUR SOLDIERS SING*

The necessity for poetry and song is fully and officially recognized by the military authorities at the Front. Every Division has its own concert party. These men are chosen out of the ranks because they can sing, and their one task is to furnish nightly concerts for the men. They are provided with a good hall, or tent, or open-air position; and they are given enough money to buy stage scenery and appropriate dress. Everybody attends the concerts from the general to the private; and while the entertainments last, the war is forgotten. A charge is made at the door but the balance sheet is published for all ranks to see; and the profits are distributed among the Divisional charities.

Among the many Divisional Concert Parties may be named "The Bow Bells," "The Duds," "The Follies," "The Whizz-bangs," "The Fancies" and, "The Giddigoats." But, after all, the singing in the concert rooms is but a small fraction of the singing one hears in the Army. On every march, in every billet and mess, there is the sound of singing. Nor must the singing at our religious services and in the Y.M.C.A. huts be forgotten. Song seems to be the great renewer of hope and courage. It is the joy bringer. Moreover, it is an expression of emotions that can find no other voice.

There is no real difference between the songs sung by the officers, and those sung by the men. All attend the concerts and all sing on the march. The same songs do for both commanders and commanded, and I have heard the same songs in the men's billets as in the officers' mess-rooms. How real these songs are to the soldiers is indicated by one striking omission. There are no patriotic songs at the Front. Except the National Anthem rendered on formal occasions, I have never, in eighteen months, heard a single patriotic song. The reason is not far to seek. The soldiers' patriotism calls for no expression in song. They are expressing it night and day in the endurance of hardship and wounds--in the risking of their lives. Their hearts are satisfied with their deeds, and songs of such a character become superfluous. In peace-time they sing their love of the homeland, but in war-time they suffer for her and are content. They would never think of singing a patriotic song as they march into battle. It would be painting the lily and gilding refined gold. Are not their deathless deeds, songs for which they make a foil by singing some inconsequential and evanescent song such as, "There's something in the sea-side air."

On analysis I should say that there are five subjects on which our soldiers sing. First, there are Nonsense Songs or, if you prefer it, songs of soldier-philosophy. They know that no theory will explain the war; it is too big a thing for any sheet of philosophy to cover. It has burst in on our little hum-drum life like a colliding planet. The thing to do is not to evolve a theory as to how the planet got astray but to clear up the mess it has made. Our soldiers show this sense of the vastness of war-happenings, by singing of things having no real importance at all, and keeping steadily at their duties. The path of duty is, they find, the only path of sanity. The would-be war philosopher they put on one side. The war is too big for him. Let him leave his explanation of the war and lend a hand to bring it to an end. So they sing, with laughing irony,

"We're here because we're here, because We're here, because we're here."

Or,

"While you've got a lucifer to light your fag, Smile, boys, that's the style. What's the use of worrying? It never was worth while, So pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag And smile, smile, smile."

Another favorite is,

"Oh, there was a little hen and she had a wooden leg, The best little hen that ever laid an egg, And she laid more eggs than any hen on the farm, And another little drink wouldn't do us any harm."

I have seen them dancing round some old piano singing,

"Oh, that fascinating Bow Bells' glide, It's a captivating Bow Bells' slide. There's a rumor that the puma does it now, Monkeys have taken to it, Leopards and lions do it. All the elephants wear dancing shoes, They keep hopping with the kangaroos; Hear them chatter, it's a matter for some talk; Now the Jungle's got the Bow Bells' walk."

The second class of song is the Love Song, of a more or less serious character. The Tommies came out of England singing "Tipperary," but they dropped it in France, and the only one on whose lips I have heard it was a little French boy sitting on the tail of a cart. The chorus alone gave it popularity for it was the expression, ready to hand, of a long farewell; and with its "long long way to go" showed that, like Kitchener, the soldiers were not deceived by hopes of an early peace.

Now another song with verses more expressive of their sentiments has taken its place. The chorus runs:

"There's a long, long trail a-winding Into the land of my dreams, Where the nightingales are singing And a white moon beams; There's a long, long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true; Till the day when I'll be going down That long, long trail with you."

Then the mood changes, and we hear the lads piping out,

"Taffy's got his Jennie in Glamorgan, Sandy's got his Maggie in Dundee, While Michael O'Leary thinks of his dearie Far across the Irish Sea. Billy's got his Lily up in London, So the boys march on with smiles; For every Tommy's got a girl somewhere In the dear old British Isles."

Again the mood veers round, and we hear,

"Every little while I feel so lonely, Every little while I feel so blue, I'm always dreaming, I'm always scheming, Because I want you, and only you. Every little while my heart is aching, Every little while I miss your smile, And all the time I seem to miss you; I want to, want to kiss you, Every, every, every little while."

Here is part of a song I have heard sung, many and many a time, by young officers and men whose voices are now silent in death:

"If you were the only girl in the world, And I were the only boy, Nothing else would matter in the world to-day, We could go on loving in the same old way; A Garden of Eden just made for two, With nothing to mar our joy; I would say such wonderful things to you, There would be such wonderful things to do, If you were the only girl in the world, And I were the only boy."

Sometimes the imagination will wander into the days that are to be--for some--and they sing,

"We don't want a lot of flags flying, We don't want your big brass bands; We don't want a lot of speechifying, And we don't want a lot of waving hands; We don't want a lot of interfering, When we've safely crossed the foam; But we _do_ want to find the girls we left behind, When we all come marching home."

Will the girls remember! The words are not without tragedy. How deeply some of the men love may perhaps never be realized by those at home. The longing of their hearts is, at times, almost unbearable. A captain, past middle life, took my arm one day and led me aside. He was, he said, a little anxious about himself, for he was getting into the habit of taking more drink than he was wont to take. He had been taking it when he felt lonely and depressed to ease the longing of his heart.

"I never touch it at home," he said, "the society of my dear little wife is all the stimulant I need. I would give the world to be with her now--just to sit in my chair and watch her at her sewing or knitting. The separation is too much for me and, you know, it has lasted nearly three years now."

I have caught this yearning in more than one of the songs our soldiers sing, but especially in the following, which is called "Absent":

"Sometimes, between long shadows on the grass, The little truant waves of sunlight pass; My eyes grow dim with tenderness, the while Thinking I see thee, thinking I see thee smile.

"And sometimes in the twilight gloom, apart, The tall trees whisper, whisper heart to heart; From my fond lips the eager answers fall, Thinking I hear thee, thinking I hear thee call."

The men's thoughts pass easily from the sweetheart to the mother who bore them, and we have a third class, the Home Song. I have been awakened in the night by men, going up to the line, singing "Keep the Home Fires Burning." It is very thrilling to hear in the dead of night, when every singer is within range of the enemy's guns.

Another great favorite is,

"They built a little garden for the rose, And they called it Dixie-land; They built a summer breeze to keep the snows Far away from Dixie-land; They built the finest place I've known, When they built my home sweet home; Nothing was forgotten in the land of cotton, From the clover to the honey-comb, And then they took an angel from the skies And they gave her heart to me. She had a bit of heaven in her eyes Just as blue as blue can be; They put some fine spring chickens in the land, And taught my Mammy how to use a frying pan. They made it twice as nice as paradise, And they called it Dixie-land."

Being Londoners, the following song called "Leave" never fails in its appeal to our Division:

"I'm so delighted, I'm so excited, With my folks I'm going to be united. The train's departing, 'twill soon be starting; I'll see my mother, my dad and my baby brother. My! How I'll meet them, My! how I'll greet them. What a happy happy day. Just see that bustle, I'd better hustle, Good-bye--so long--can't stay--

Chorus

"I'm on my way back to dear old Shepherd's Bush, That's the spot where I was born, Can't you hear the porter calling, Queen's Road, Piccadilly, Marble Arch and Bond Street? Oh, I'll not hesitate, I'll reach the gate; Through the crowd I mean to push, Find me a seat anywhere--please anywhere, Tram, train, tube, 'bus I don't care-- For mother and daddy are waiting there-- In dear old Shepherd's Bush."

On the eve of one big battle, a soldier handed me a letter in which he gave me the addresses of his father and his sweetheart, so that I could write to them if he fell.

"In the last battle," he said, "one of my brothers was killed and another wounded. If I fall I shall die without regrets and with a heart content; but it will go hard with those at home; and I want you to break the news gently. These are terrible times for those at home." "These are terrible times _for those at home_." That is their constant refrain, and it finds an echo in a song often sung by them.

"It's a long long way to my home in Kentucky, Where the blue-bells grow 'round the old cabin door; It's a long, long way and I'll be mighty lucky When I see my dear old mammy once more. So weep no more, my lady, Just brush those tears away; It's a long long way to my home in Kentucky, But I'm bound to get there some day."

But the chief favorite of all Home Songs is, I think, the following: