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Title: The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLI, no. 245 new series, November 1916)
Author: Various
Release date: January 20, 2024 [eBook #72767]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1860
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE (VOL. XLI, NO. 245 NEW SERIES, NOVEMBER 1916) ***
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THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
NOVEMBER 1916.
_FLY LEAVES; OR TALES OF A FLYING PATROL. B.E.F. 1915._
_EXTRACTS FROM A PILOT’S LOG AND LETTERS HOME._
We are over the Channel at last and steering by compass for France and
the War; clouds looking lovely in the sun and the engine working nicely.
Incidentally we are supposed to be looking for submarines. Nothing doing.
Duller than usual in fact. Wish I hadn’t said that! Of course it made
the beastly engine miss. Am looking about wildly for something that will
float, in case it gives up entirely and we fall into the sea. However,
much tap-twiddling induced the wretched thing to resume its purr,
although you would probably think that the purr was more like a chorus of
very angry dogs barking. There’s a ship ‘tramping’ about a mile below me,
making a horrid smoke. I wonder if they paid for best Welsh. I wish you
were here with me, you’d love it. The ‘Tramp’ looks dirty and dangerous
and would probably make me very ill.
* * * * *
We have just landed at R.F.C. headquarters and have had a much better
tea than we have ever had time for in the strenuous old days in England.
I thought you might be amused by my writing a letter to you in the air.
The writing was wobblier than usual when we struck the gusts and the
down-draughts from the clouds. I wonder what has happened to Phil. We
started together, but his machine was left a long way astern and was
lost sight of about half-way over. I hope he isn’t in the ditch.... Our
Channel crossing took just 16 minutes—rather an improvement on the time
of the Leave steamer.
* * * * *
Glad to say Phil is all right; he came down near the coast with a
broken valve, so I went over and fixed it up with him and we flew back
peacefully together....
* * * * *
Many thanks for your letter and the cake, especially the cake. It has
been raining lately, so we have not had much flying. No Hun machines out
at all, so we have been drawing all the usual coverts blank, and have
got cold for nothing. One Boche had a narrow shave the other day; one of
our crowd, who rejoices in the name of Mad Jack, saw him coming over and
promptly hid in a cloud. Fritz sauntered along in an old L.V.G. biplane,
looking on the floor, and directly he had passed, Mad Jack dived, and
opened fire at the grand new yellow scarf Fritz was wearing round his
neck, much to his surprise and annoyance. Having his new scarf punctured
was more than brother Boche could stand, so off he legged it, heaving out
maps and goggles, a few bullets from his Mausers, some smoke and much bad
language. Unfortunately our gun jambed, with the oil frozen nearly solid.
The two airmen weren’t exactly hot either. Rotten luck, wasn’t it?
* * * * *
Next day, Uncle Carl in his Albatross comes over our shanties, drops a
few bombs on a hop garden near by and clears off before we could get near
him. Quite convenient on the whole, as our Intelligence Officer soon
discovered that murdered hops make good soup and good salad. By the way,
Uncle Carl’s last bomb was a dummy, with a note addressed to us wishing
‘a happy Easter and better luck to the English aviators who have driven
us from the air.’ Rather nice and sarcastic, wasn’t it? We all howled
with laughter and framed the note, together with the copy of an official
document which is usually known as ‘Comic Cuts.’
* * * * *
Everyone well and cheery. Billets very fair, but we can’t get baths.
Yesterday was Easter Day and I managed to work in an early chapel (which
was rigged up in the local château), and also an ordinary Church parade
later on. We had a full-blown Padre, and the Services were very welcome
and well attended. Sleepy now, so farewell. By the way, the last cake
wasn’t so big as the previous one. Gott strafe War Economy.
* * * * *
The Huns aren’t scrapping much, so yesterday three of us went on duty in
three machines to a jolly little seaside watering place, where they were
supposed to grow submarines. We only found bathing machines, and some
quite pretty French girls who talked some quaint language. However, one
of us managed to find out what it was all about, and we discovered we
were asked to an enormous dinner party given in our honour at the local
château. The brother of one of the ladies I had met last year at Olympia,
when he was riding his show horses. It was a regular West Country dinner,
as several of us had hunted regularly with the Devon and Somerset in
happier days, and the rest had been to the Cathedral at Exeter. We had a
gorgeous time and, leaving our machines there according to orders, came
back in a car driven by the Fortescues’ late chauffeur, now a full-blown
private. Funny little world, isn’t it?
* * * * *
(Interval for refreshments and also to tune our Wireless.)
* * * * *
A very quaint thing happened here the other day. A pilot was coming down
in his Martinsyde Scout to land after a very strenuous time aloft. A man
was on the floor lighting an experimental smoke-bomb by a fuse. Neither
saw the other and they very nearly met. Bang went the smoke-bomb just at
the moment of landing. The pilot thought he had been hit by a shell, or
that his machine had suddenly blown up, and couldn’t for the life of him
remember what the drill book said was the correct attitude to maintain
when this sort of thing happened. The floor man fell down flat on his
face, frightened out of his life, and yelled out that he had been knocked
down and was rapidly expiring. Lots of us saw the whole show a hundred
yards off and howled with laughter. The Court found both prisoners guilty
of attempted death by misadventure, and fined them each one drink all
round. That’ll learn ’em!
* * * * *
Lots of work in the air, and more on the ground with repairs, motor
transport and so on. German Archie (the nickname for Anti-Aircraft
Artillery) has been pretty busy, but luckily not very effective. The
fellows on the ground say the sight is lovely and most artistic, as the
little white puffs burst round the machine every few seconds. These
aren’t my views; if they are out for artistic effect I wish they would do
it elsewhere.
* * * * *
Going to bed now, as we have to be up early for a combined Boche
hunt—that is, if we can find any, but game is very scarce and shy,
especially at present. There is a feeling that perhaps they dislike being
hunted. If we can’t find any of their aeroplanes, we photograph their
trenches and defences, with a little bombing by-play thrown in. This
annoys them quite a lot.
* * * * *
(Next day.) We had been flying before breakfast. Beastly cold and very
hungry, and we had drawn all the usual places blank. Brother Boche had
too much sense to fly at an unearthly hour like that. We were getting
rather bored with the whole show and annoyed with Archie’s attentions,
when we spotted a machine four miles to the S.E. and so left our own
patrol to give chase. It was a long way off and almost certainly an
English machine. (It nearly always is, as the Huns know the look of our
destroyers and usually avoid them assiduously, clearing off on sight.)
However, we gave chase, just for luck, feeling bored; but as it got well
over the German lines without getting Archied we got more interested. We
had by then climbed to about 10,000 feet and had closed hardly at all,
so we gave chase seriously, settling down to a steady 90 knots or more.
After a few minutes we could see through glasses that she was a Hun
Albatross biplane, going to their aerodrome, probably with information.
She was doing about 60, so we gained, keeping above and behind her, where
her pilot couldn’t very well see us, and we soon closed to about 200
yards. Then we dived suddenly with a swoop, which was a fine feeling,
rather what one imagines a hawk must feel like, speed about 120 or 130
knots, and then opened fire on her starboard quarter at a range of about
50 yards. She was hit by the first burst of rapid fire, and bits of
fabric and wood and metal flaked off. She dived and twisted, and her
observer opened at us with an automatic pistol at about 25 yards range.
We were both heeled over on one wing, and both diving and banking at
the same time. It must have looked rather jolly from the floor. The
wind pressure was appalling and nearly lifted the gunner clean out of
our machine. Fritz’s observer’s bullets whistled close past our heads,
which was good shooting on his part, ripping up part of the plane above
us in a few places, but luckily neither of us was hit. A few seconds
later we knocked the pistol out of his arm, and their pilot was also hit
and probably killed, as the Albatross side-slipped, fell vertically,
and turned over on its back, our craft rushing over it and missing it
by a very few feet. The defeated German ’plane finally nose-dived the
remaining two thousand feet or so, and smashed up completely on hitting
the earth. We were still diving very fast indeed, and I succeeded in
turning this into a slow spiral over the spot where the wrecked enemy
lay, but we could see no movement at all, only a tangled mass of twisted
wires, splintered wood, and torn fabric—all that remained of what a
few minutes before had been a very fine specimen of engineering skill.
We then straightened out our course and strolled home on a regular
jack-snipe’s plan of flying, to avoid the guns, machine guns and rifles,
which the Boches turned on to us from the floor as soon as there was no
chance of their hitting their own machine. They loosed off quite a jolly
Morning Hate at us from the trenches too, but though we were holed over
thirty times, they didn’t do any damage that mattered. We got back to
our lines and eased up to cool the engine, and then climbed up to 9500
feet to see if we could hunt another Hun. However, nothing doing, so we
returned home just in time, for our petrol was getting low and our kind
messmates had eaten half our breakfast, as we were the last in. Otherwise
a satisfactory time, though I would rather kill lots of ordinary Huns
than their flyers, who are better fellows on the whole than the rest; but
we can have no soft feelings now, after the Huns’ brutal performances.
When they catch us, if they catch us alive, we have no hope at all for
our future comfort.
* * * * *
Very tiresome; these fellows are the limit! I was just off to have a nice
hot bath, when a rotten Hun in an Aviatik amused himself by dropping
bombs, so we had to go up and chase him, but he bolted too fast, and got
too low over his machine guns on the floor, for us to have a chance of
closing right up. However, we fired at him and frightened him horribly,
judging by his behaviour, and probably hit him hard, though we didn’t
smash him entirely. I suddenly remembered it was tea-time and so we went
back quick. The getting back past the guns is the worst part of it.
Incidentally the observer saw some Hun movements, which he insisted on
watching closely. I think he composed an essay or two as well, or perhaps
it was a sonnet. The G.O.C. seemed very pleased with it, which was much
more than I was, as we got Archied of course and hit in several places,
early in the performance. Beastly nuisance getting back, as part of the
propeller was broken off by a bit of shell, ditto the wings, and chunks
were taken out of our woodwork. The vibration was horrid and we expected
it would smash up the machine before we got home. However, we were only
sea-sick. We eventually landed by flares about dark. A tiresome day,
as I wanted the bath and the opportunity of refilling the mess cellar.
However, Jack did it all for me, and he says it was quite nice. I dislike
Jack now!
* * * * *
Thanks very much for the papers. We get the _Times_ and some others,
twenty-four hours late, and also a daily official news, locally known as
‘Comic Cuts’ or ‘Saucy Sidelights on Soldiers’ Secrets.’
We were all much amused this morning by watching Jumbo photographing the
Huns’ lines in a gale of wind which blew all the Archies adrift, the only
trouble being that Jumbo was so busy with his machine that he nearly
forgot to come home, even when the photographer had used up all his
plates.
The may is out in blossom and the whole country is nice and green, bar
the mess which the fighting makes. Yesterday we went to the Asylum, where
British officers get hot baths twice a week; and very welcome they are
too. The Asylum has been made into a sort of Bath Club, and one meets
one’s pals there, other than the lunatics, to whom we owe a debt of
gratitude for giving up washing _pro tem_.
Tom lent me a horse and I rode over to see his brother, who has been in
the trenches some months now and was having a week’s rest. But when I
was there his crowd was suddenly warned for duty again, to put right a
mistake on the part of some of our Allies, against whom the Huns had been
using stinks,—a low game. Charlie was very fit and is the only surviving
original officer of his company.
I have just been inoculated with the Tetanus stuff, as I got a finger
busted up. Leastwise the Pill-man says that’s why, but I think he is only
being Frightful. I had two shell-hits in my wing yesterday, which cost
H.M. Government about 2_s._ 3_d._ each to mend, but the Boches fired over
£100 worth at us, so we are up on that deal. I think I’ll go and worry
the Adjutant and see if I can’t get a little commission, or an invitation
to dinner at the Headquarters mess.
* * * * *
Archie has got a new gun which is amusing him like a new toy. I hope he
will never learn to use it properly, as it is a big one, and the black
smoke of its projectiles smells horrid, and is neither ‘grateful nor
comforting’ like the cocoa you sent me. The Hun stink-gases are beastly
things, but at present fairly useful. A dirty trick, but not a bad one
if you have no morals. Sorry I can’t give you any news, as we hear very
little and are not allowed to talk of what we see for ourselves. Most of
what we read in the papers, and about which we have any knowledge, is
wrong, so we’re all in the same boat.
Poor Jumbo has had bad luck. He was by way of going to pay Germany a
visit, just to encourage them a bit with a bomb or two, but his beastly
engine has just broken its heart, and his too, poor chap, though with
any luck he will be able to go to-morrow; meanwhile he is not fit to
talk to. A strenuous day for all of us working hard on the floor; rather
like a hot day at home in September, when there are no partridges, but
instead a great longing for drinks, with none available. We hope to get
on the road, or rather in the air, again by to-morrow. One of our fellows
nearly, oh! so nearly, got Fritz the other day. Both machines were badly
hit by each other’s bullets, the Hun legging it as hard as he could, with
our little machine yapping away at its tail, when our gun stuck with a
bad cartridge, and Fritz got away wounded but not knocked out. We all
hate leaving game of any sort wounded ‘out on the hill,’ but we should
have got Fritz if we had had a keeper and a good dog. Zeps are poor,
shy, lonely creatures and also scarce, and I am afraid that the chance
of a shot at these night bugs is very remote. In a way this is quite
satisfactory, as it is part of our job to sweep the air clean and neat,
and to prevent the Boches from flying over and getting information. We
do this quite effectively without ever seeing a Zep or an aeroplane for
several days together, as they daren’t come near us in daylight, in the
ordinary course of events. Zeps are a poor sort of practical joke in
rather bad taste.
* * * * *
Two or three days ago we were suddenly sent for, just as we were
beginning dinner, to chase Zeps, which were reported a long way to the
North, going to England, as indeed they did. It was nearly dark and they
would not let us go. Our flight was first on the ground out of the tents,
and had loaded up and tested engines before orders came to stand by,
which was pretty quick work. We were not allowed up, of course, without
orders from the General or Colonel or somebody. However, we agreed to
sleep on the floor under our wings, in case we were allowed to start at
dawn. Eventually we did get leave, and two of us went off within a minute
and kept station. We went northwards to the sea towards N⸺ and then out
to sea a few miles, to dodge the coastwise ‘Archies,’ which annoyed them.
They fired a lot, but all short, as we guessed their range correctly and
kept out of it. Then we altered course north-easterly, and went up the
coast past O⸺. More annoyance to the Huns, who woke up slowly; but we
couldn’t see the Zeps. I expect the wind, which was very weak then, had
let them get home before we could see them. Better luck next time. So we
came back via the German lines, to look for a chance Hun early-birding.
* * * * *
We had a day off serious work this week, and went and dropped a jolly
little assortment of comic bombs on some German massed troops, trains
and transport behind their lines, about the time of their morning lager.
Quite useful and very Frightful. We heard later that we had done much
damage and had delayed a concentration considerably. They got very angry
indeed and fired heaps of shells, several hundreds of pounds worth, and
did no harm bar a few hits on our wings, which were mended in an hour or
so by our mechanics, while we were having lunch. Rather a lark.
* * * * *
Here is a gap in the letter, during which I have had my hair cut by
one of our chauffeurs. You’d laugh if you saw it now. It was done in a
farmyard where we live and have our being, and was watched by a dirty
crowd of kids of all sorts and sizes from two to fourteen years. They
chanted a chorus during the performance of ‘Cigarette and souvenir.’
We couldn’t even get rid of them when we turned the farmyard dog on to
them. However, they were terrified when we threatened them with some
pigs that we keep in the yard against the day when our rations do not
arrive. Our farm is fairly close to the battle and we hear it all when an
entertainment is in progress, though it never wakes us now. Well, after
the hair was cropped, we had THE BATH—just like that—made out of canvas
and bits of wood, the water being heated in petrol cans cut in half.
Delicious!!
* * * * *
Suddenly, a frightful noise! In the middle of having a wash, the
peaceful farmyard is invaded by a lot of steaming war-horses, and we
dash down in time to welcome the headquarters and a squadron of the
Blues. Very glad to see them; very nice too being among horses once
more. They had just come back from the battle and were very hungry. We
gave them dinner, to the great consternation of our limited staff and
the good house-wife of the farm. For my sins I was responsible, as I was
mess-president of our little flying crowd of six or seven, but, all the
same, fifteen of us sat down to an enormous meal in half an hour. We had
haggis, beef and onions, porridge and sardines, potatoes and almond icing
and brandy cherries. The table for dinner grew rapidly out of a door and
a few packing cases and tins, and light for the feast was provided by
the head lamps of one of the motor transport cars. So now you see the
advantage of this life is, that although all these officers, and 160 men
besides, rolled up, the house was not overcrowded—we merely got more
straw and ejected the rats, and the newcomers slept alongside of us. By
the way, I found that the cavalry snore was much worse than the article
supplied by the Flying Corps.
We all try to be as comfortable as we can, and are lucky in having an
ex-tailor, who is now a corporal mechanic—promoted, I really believe, for
his skill in sewing odd bits of sacking and cloth produced from nowhere
at all, on to bits of broken under-carriages and so forth, and making
them into armchairs and sofas that would not disgrace the Ritz.
* * * * *
The other day, when some of us were foraging in a town not very far from
a quaint spot called Wipers, the Huns had mistaken the time of their
Evening Hate, and started by blowing a house into the road on both sides
of our car. These Jack Johnsons are sometimes rather a bore—our party had
to wait for the shop people to emerge from their cellars, before we could
buy our dinner, and then the third shell came and knocked the opposite
house down. However, we had the goods first, so it didn’t much matter.
The driver of the car burnt his hand, picking a hot bit of shell out of
the car’s way, at a spot where another projectile had pitched and burst,
fifty yards ahead of us, and we saw one of the funniest sights in the
war—namely, a terrified Belgian civilian running for all he was worth,
and taking a complete toss into the shell hole. We picked him up in the
car, and his only thanks was a bitter complaint at the jolty way in
which the car ran over his own pavé.
* * * * *
On the way home, we saw one of our Avros hit while observing our heavy
gun-fire. It was a horrid sight, as an Archie shell hit the engine full
toss. Luckily, the pilot was able to come down safely, but unfortunately
it was in the German lines and he was captured. He was at Eton with
me, and we were very glad to hear that both he and his observer were
practically unhurt;—rotten luck, was it not? But it is all part of our
show and what we all expect more or less. To make up for it, next day we
got a brace of their machines by a fair stalk and a fair fight in the
air, and not by these horrible Archies.
* * * * *
Part of our job is to read the men’s letters and censor them: our men
are extraordinarily good at their work and I never wish for any better,
but, taken all round, their letter-writing is not very original. This is
not perhaps to be wondered at, as they are not allowed to give any news
of the war, and they of course know that everything they write is to be
censored. About the only topics that are discussed at all are the two
most primitive ones, consisting chiefly of requests for food and raiment,
and the sending of loves and kisses, the more indiscriminate the better.
One hero wrote four identical letters to four different girls. One’s own
time for letter-writing is limited, and this effusion has taken parts of
three whole days to write. It is done in the intervals of flying; testing
bombs and detonators and other fireworks, with which we try to enliven
things occasionally; seeing after guns, engines and machines; avoiding
Staff officers; trying to talk French to Belgian N.C.O.s who are lent to
us with their men for making improvements to our aerodrome; and other
work, such as drawing maps to satisfy the insatiable curiosity of the
G.O.C., and devising means to appease the voracity of the fellow members
of one’s mess.
Now I am sitting on the ground under a sort of tent, where bits of my
engine are being improved by my expert mechanic, and I am writing on a
tin of castor-oil. My finger is still bandaged up, so the pencil is not
very easy to work. After yesterday’s fine summer-day, of course it is
foggy and cold, raining and drizzling, so no one can fly, as nothing can
be seen; and there is a peaceful feel and a busy hum of machine tools in
camp.
On the last foggy day that we were up, we saw something suddenly loom
out of the fog, and, thinking it might be a Hun machine, swerved towards
it, but only for a second; luckily we swerved off again just in time to
miss the cock on top of the steeple of a well-known church on a hill
by a few feet—very unpleasant!—the ground being invisible at the time.
One evening, on the way out for a raid, I came across a large eagle,
flying at about fifteen hundred feet. The surprise was mutual. It was
the first time in my life that I saw one of these fine birds completely
lose its head, and in an attempt to avoid what it probably thought was a
super-eagle, it warped its wings the wrong way and actually side-slipped
like a badly flown aeroplane, falling—headlong—a few hundred feet. The
last we saw of it, it had recovered, and was flying rapidly away in the
opposite direction.
* * * * *
Yesterday my observer and I had an extraordinary experience when chasing
an Albatross biplane. While behind his own lines the Boche was some
12,000 feet up, and when we first saw him our machine was some 2000
feet lower. The German tried to get away and dive home. There was no
chance of catching him at the time, so we turned away and went and hid
in a big cloud, in the hope that the German would come back to continue
his work in our absence. This of course is quite an ordinary manœuvre
and usually works. Once inside the cloud, however, trouble began, as it
rapidly developed into the worst type of thunderstorm cloud, in which
the air currents are very rapid and revolve in a most disconcerting
manner. It was also very wet and cold, and quite dark. This made flying
extraordinarily difficult, and after a short time we had not the faintest
idea where we were or whither we were going. Things started falling about
inside the nacelle, and it was soon quite obvious that the machine was
flying or falling on anything but a level keel. Finding my automatic
pistol trickling between my legs, I turned my eyes inside the machine
and anxiously watched the instruments, which I was horrified to see were
behaving very oddly; for instance, the compass was gyrating madly, like
a puppy chasing its own tail; the aneroid-needle, which was supposed to
show our height above ground, was quivering with the rapid variations
of atmospheric pressure, but yet enabled me to grasp the alarming fact
that the earth was approaching at an extremely rapid rate. The speed
indicator, which in this particular aeroplane consisted of a column of
red liquid actuated by pipes, connected with a special type of nozzle
fixed on one of the struts of the machine, amused itself by gurgling up
and down between thirty and a hundred miles an hour; and the red liquid
added injury to insult by spilling itself over my new breeches. Besides
this, the rudder, the elevators and the balancing ailerons sometimes took
effect and sometimes did not; all of which added to the terror of the
approaching flashes of lightning, the horrible feeling of being utterly
unable to control the machine, which was by this time careering about in
the noise and darkness like a frightened horse.
The German aeroplane, too, was known to be about, and there might well
have been an awful collision, without a second’s warning, in the middle
of a thunderstorm cloud.
Suddenly the observer looked round with a grin and pointed to a light
patch in the darkness; this rapidly cleared, and, as the visibility
increased, I recognised one of the canals. It was not underneath me, as
one might expect; it was right out, beyond one wing-tip. The machine,
therefore, was obviously falling in a quick spiral towards the canal.
The worst of the vortex having been safely passed, the damp of the cloud
changed into sleet, which froze on the machine and on our faces and
goggles; so that in addition to attending to the machine and gun, both of
us unfortunate occupants had to be continually wiping our glasses. Our
clothes, too, were wet through, outside from the cloud, and inside as the
result of the very violent exercise taken in hanging on to the bucking
aeroplane and in controlling it. Never have I worked so hard for mere
existence, and never have I had a more unpleasant time.
But all was now comparatively plain sailing, and once the machine was got
under control, everything was more or less comfortable again. The machine
was actually in the cloud for about a quarter of an hour, and had flown
some ten or twelve miles and had dropped 5000 or 6000 feet. To add to the
entertainment, the storm had burst during the process, and the thunder
and lightning were studied at close range. Man-made shells are pretty
beastly and are apt to kill if they hit one, or go bang near enough, but
they aren’t nearly so frightening as the Almighty’s automatic display, if
you happen to be on the stage. The enemy did open a pretty hot fire on
the machine when it emerged, but we could not really be bothered on that
occasion to take any notice of it. A further search was made for the
German machine, but no trace of it could be found anywhere in the sky, so
we supposed that the fright it got was enough for it and that it had gone
home for good, in which it showed its wisdom.
* * * * *
Hot weather now with a strong north-easterly gale—we can just fly against
it and that is about all. Some machines can hardly do that and therefore
make an easier target for Archibald and his big brother the Crump from
Krupps.
* * * * *
I am sending you back a bit of shell which broke a rib in one of the
wings and then stuck in another. This is rather unusual, so perhaps you
may care to keep it. It may interest you to know that we were flying at a
height well over 10,000 feet—a pretty good shot, was it not? Luckily it
didn’t do any damage that mattered.
* * * * *
We have recently had some very interesting and exciting work to do. We
had to come down to the low altitude of about 5000 feet to reconnoitre a
small piece of country very carefully, for a big long-range German siege
gun, that had been annoying some of our troops well behind the lines.
We took several photographs and searched the country minutely with our
field-glasses, and eventually found four or five places, any one of which
might quite possibly provide shelter and concealment for this big German
piece.
The photographs having been developed, the number of possible places was
somewhat reduced, and we then went up again and searched for the gun in
the marked spots and took more photographs. Of course the German gunners
were much too clever to loose off their piece when we were searching;
the flash of discharge would have given away their position at once. For
three days we searched and photographed, up and down, over a few square
miles, using up several dozen of the best plates procurable, with a
camera specially made for the work. Eventually we proved the existence
of a small light railway—almost a toy—along which trucks, containing one
shell only, were pushed by hand. This railway, being connected to one of
the Belgian State Railways in German hands, provided the necessities of
life and ammunition for the daily Hate of the gun. The blast of the gun
had also destroyed and damaged some small trees and bushes on each side
of the line of fire, and this gave us a further clue. The gun itself had
been mounted on one of the famous concrete foundations, inside a small
building which was part of an innocent-looking farm. It was completely
hidden from view, and fired out through the big double doors of the
barn. Having at last solved the problem of the position of this gun,
it was arranged to destroy it next day. One of our own heavy guns was
brought up within range and concealed behind a hill during the night.
The concealment was so perfect that when we went up next day, we were at
first bitterly disappointed, because we thought that our gun had failed
to arrive; however, a welcome signal from the ground informed us that it
was ready to perform its share of the entertainment. The gunners had been
previously shown the position of the farm, with the German gun inside
it, on the map, but they could not see it and had to fire entirely by
calculations. The first shot went a few hundred yards short; the second
a hundred yards over it; the third a little bit to the right; the fourth
and fifth demolished the farm, with our latest form of high-explosive
shell; the sixth and seventh also went straight in and completed the
destruction of the gun and its ammunition supply, which was stored quite
close, there being nothing left except a large volume of thick black
smoke. The explosions were terrific and were audible for miles around.
An aeroplane also dropped an assortment of high-explosive and incendiary
bombs, and nothing could have lived in the inferno, which half an hour
previously had apparently been a harmless Belgian farm. We came back and
took a couple of photographs, when the smoke and dirt had drifted away
with the wind. It is a curious commentary on the War, that while the
opposing infantry were fighting at about fifty yards range, the German
gunners should have been shooting from a position of comparative quiet,
five miles behind _their_ infantry, at an undefended town some ten miles
behind _our_ infantry; and that _our_ gun should have been shooting from
another quiet position well behind our lines at the _German_ gun, none
of the gunners concerned on either side having ever seen their target at
all; and it is here that the supremacy of the air told heavily. A German
Aviatik aeroplane, fitted with wireless, had come over and had attempted
to direct the fire of the German gun; it did not have time to complete
its work before it was attacked by two of our swift fighting machines and
brought down, both its occupants being wounded and the machine captured;
consequently the damage done by this extraordinarily powerful weapon was
not at all in proportion to the wonderful care and forethought bestowed
on the manufacture and positioning of the piece. Although no German
machine attacked ours with any success during the process of locating
the gun and its final destruction, yet they had surrounded the spot with
powerful anti-aircraft guns, which fired high-explosive shrapnel; there
were also one or two high-angle Howitzers of approximately 8 inch bore,
firing an enormous high-explosive shell, which burst with a tremendous
rush of black smoke, and disturbed the air for a considerable area,
to such an extent that it made flying always difficult and sometimes
extremely dangerous, apart from the holes which the fragments of shell
themselves make in one’s pet aeroplane.
On one of these occasions one of these big shells exploded so close that
it capsized the machine, and the pilot was thrown out of his seat and
found himself hanging on with one hand and one foot. The observer also
had an extremely narrow escape from being thrown out, some of the loose
gear in the machine falling down vertically for a mile and a half and, we
hope, hitting some German on the head. The pilot managed to scramble back
into his seat and get the machine to resume a more dignified position. It
had, however, fallen about 600 or 800 feet, and both the occupants were
amused and greatly relieved to see the next batch of shells burst about
this height above their heads. The Germans of course knew, or guessed,
what we were after and were much annoyed with our persistency. Over a
hundred shells of various sorts were counted, bursting in the air, within
two minutes, by an onlooker on the ground, and it is not surprising that
the machine was frequently hit; but we were lucky enough to manage to get
back to our own side of the trenches when we were sufficiently damaged to
be forced to come down.
I never seem to get accustomed to being shelled when they get close, and
I think it is beastly. It is rather different being in a trench, when the
whole trench is being shelled, and where one can usually get some cover,
but in the air it is an offensively personal ‘Hate’ on the part of the
Strafers. One’s aeroplane is the target of the guns, and, if low enough
down, of the machine guns and rifles too; and the pilot himself is the
bull’s-eye in the centre of the target.
It is bad enough for a pilot, but it must be much worse for those very
gallant fellows who come up as observers and photographers, because they
know that if their pilot is killed there is very little hope of their
ever getting down alive themselves. I never believe those fellows who
say they are not afraid. Anybody who has imagination must be frightened
at times, and it has often been shown that anyone without imagination
can never hope to fly at all well. However, all this makes no difference
and we go up cheerily all the same, in fact I think that a Flying Corps
mess is about the cheeriest place that I have ever been in. The work is
extraordinarily interesting and at times very exciting, although we have
our bad spells of dulness, when we have to come down after a long and
tiring patrol in the bitter cold and report to our chief ‘nothing doing.’
I have given you rather a long description of one particular job of work,
out of many that we are constantly doing. This sort of work is going on
more or less incessantly over the whole front, while other machines are
employed in reconnaissance—that is, searching for enemy movements and
new enemy positions, and photographing them when found; or in directing
the fire of our artillery by observing the fall of their shells, and
then signalling back by wireless or other means, so that the gunners are
enabled in practice to drop their shells on any spot they like about the
size of a tennis court, within the entire range of their weapons.
The other work which some of us do, and which is better known to the
public, consists in dropping bombs and engaging the enemy aeroplanes in
the air. We nearly always come off top dog on these occasions, but of
course there are, I am sorry to say, times when a machine does not come
home.
I am writing this letter while my machine is being mended and the engines
overhauled, after the last few strenuous days.
* * * * *
Some of us are members of the local ‘Frog Club.’ There are two classes
of members in the Frog Club: one class shoots the frogs—not with
ammunition, for it is too precious, but with catapults, home-made out
of local fences, while the rubber is provided, I regret to say, at the
national expense, out of ‘absorbers, shock, rubber part-worn’ (as we say
in our lists of spare parts) from smashed aeroplane under-carriages. It
is contended that shrapnel in the form of fine gravel is the best for
frogs; but the expert shot, who, when he is not flying, is a Captain
in the Royal Garrison Artillery, thinks that a single bullet about the
size of half a brick—or perhaps a shade less—is better. He says he gets
quite close, but he has never yet hit one. He is now designing a highly
elaborate telescopic sight for use with his catapult, and we encourage
this industry on his part, as it keeps him away from disturbing the
waters. Personally, I belong to the fishing section, and our implement
consists of a rod, made of broken parts of our machine, which have been
shot through and joined together in the most approved split-cane-rod
fashion, while for bait we use a piece of red flannel mounted on a bent
pin.
We have quite learned from the French the advantage of Frog as an article
of diet, although we find it necessary to persuade our guests to eat
them, by calling them quail, or similar reminiscences of a London dance
at the Ritz. The demand for game has been more than the supply, so our
mess cook solves the problem by catching them with, I think, a net and a
bucket. He is no sportsman, but withal an excellent cook.
* * * * *
Another early morning; up at daybreak, looking for Huns in the air. One
German up, an L.V.G. two-seater—obviously very sleepy, and even more
annoyed at being turned out of his bed than we were. We met him coming up
towards our lines while we were at 9000 feet. He didn’t apparently see
us, so we dived 5000 feet on top of him and loosed off our machine gun.
He was badly hit and his engine smashed, but we could not manage to kill
the pilot, who pluckily dived his machine steadily down, with our own
close behind him, over some well-concealed anti-aircraft guns.
They hit us all right, as they usually do nowadays, but not vitally; and
Brother Boche was crumpled up when he landed—quite good fun, but they are
too scarce and shy for one to be at all certain of a hunt on any given
morning. They know our fighting machines by sight, and nearly always bolt
and dive for home, unless one can catch them unbeknownst, which is not
very often.
* * * * *
Casualties have been rather heavy in the R.F.C. lately, partly owing to
their trick of leading us over their hidden anti-aircraft guns and Rocket
Batteries. One Howitzer in particular has been too good a shot for some
of us, so we arranged to have a morning Hate against this particular
Crump and thoroughly strafed it, wrecking it absolutely with one of our
Heavies.
The Boches have had at least as good as they gave, and flying seems no
longer to be a popular pastime among them.
* * * * *
The last day or two we have been on patrol duty in a fighting machine
over a given area. This consists in flying all over the shop, and
protecting our machines which are doing fire control, or photo, or
reconnaissance work, or other special jobs; the ‘protection’ consists
partly in drawing the fire of the ‘Archies’ (i.e. the regular
anti-aircraft shrapnel quick-firing guns) and ‘Crumps’ (i.e. Howitzers
which fire high-explosive shells from 5 to 8-inch) and partly in keeping
off Hun machines from being too inquisitive as to the doings of our
aeroplanes and the movements of troops on our side of the trenches. The
area one covers varies, but is often about 50 square miles, and one’s
air-speed varies from 45 to 75 miles per hour, except when diving, when
the speed goes up beyond the range of the indicator, say up to 125
m.p.h. To this may be added, or subtracted from it, the part or whole
of the true wind-speed—according to one’s course in relation to the
wind. In windy weather this has often meant an additional 50 miles per
hour, so our speed over the ground is frequently up to the standard of
the police-trap at home! One sometimes covers a couple of miles on the
floor in a minute or less, the height varying according to the day,
etc., between about 5000 and 10,000 feet. This is fairly high up, but
occasionally we have to go to 12,000 or even 15,000, though I have never
had to do so yet. At these great heights we climb slowly and the engine
and oneself both prefer to keep one’s level, as it is hard work for both
to get up much beyond this, and it is very cold too. The anti-aircraft
shells can reach us even here, though not very easily.
The chief actual result of Patrol Orders is that we are on the look-out
for Huns in the air, and ‘Archies’ and ‘Crumps’ too. Whenever we see the
former we go for them, not necessarily direct, but often manœuvre a lot
for tactical position first.
Very often, if the weather is good, we take a few assorted bombs to drop,
in case a good target appears over the Hun lines. They weigh a lot, and
so we like to get rid of them as soon as possible. There is a gunner
to work the guns, and he is either an officer or a specially trained
mechanic, with a straight eye and no nerves.
* * * * *
To-day, Thursday, it has luckily been raining, so the mechanics have
been patching up, trueing up the rigging and so on. A day’s rest is
badly needed by the machines, and we are not averse to it, so we’ve been
into P⸺ buying coal and provisions for the Mess, of which I am still
doing President. A successful day in that way too! We got coal at a fair
price from a man who is a very large brewer and general merchant; and
in return we gave a lift in the car to his wife and daughter. They have
a splendid house with a wonderful garden, and well-kept glass-houses
in great quantity. The house has only one corner chipped off by a Jack
Johnson, and the garden is O.K. and quite the best I’ve seen here—lovely!
They gave us—two of us went in—an excellent lunch and tea, and we brought
some of them back in the car, which was also laden up with provisions and
furniture.
Wisely enough, their house is deserted and they are living _pro tem_. in
a farm near us, as refugees, though one or two live in the cellar of the
P⸺ house. It is a comic world. They don’t seem to mind much, and are very
cheery and kind to us flying folk. We each walked back, with a present
of two bottles of wine, and the shuvver had one too! It turned out to be
excellent claret.
It’s as well to be amused here if we can. One’s ‘expectation of life’
isn’t very much just now.
(_To be continued._)
PRESS BUREAU: PASSED FOR PUBLICATION.
THE TUTOR’S STORY.
BY THE LATE CHARLES KINGSLEY, REVISED AND COMPLETED BY HIS DAUGHTER,
LUCAS MALET.
Copyright by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. in the United States of America.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
And now I had before me the task of telling the dear boy what must
modify, and might completely alter, the course and complexion of his
life. No light duty this, or small responsibility. It was, I felt, a
great crisis, a great turning-point. In what spirit would he meet it, and
how should I acquit myself? I was glad to have a little leisure in which
to shake off the terrible impressions of yesterday and get my mind into a
more normal attitude before delivering my news.
No account of what had happened could be in the papers under a couple of
days; so I had every reason to suppose Hartover would not receive any
hint of it before we met. I arranged with Lavender, moreover, that, as
his connection with Fédore had no direct bearing on the case, Hartover’s
name was to be carefully kept out of such reports as appeared. This done,
I tried to occupy myself with the books, pictures, and other treasures
the house contained; assiduously waited on by William, meanwhile, who,
from his readiness to linger and to talk, suspected more, as I judged,
than he dared ask or than I very certainly intended to tell him.
But my leisure suffered interruption sooner than I anticipated, and in a
manner calculated to set William’s curiosity more than ever on edge.
On the second day—it was a Sunday—Lavender called about ten o’clock,
bringing me news of which more hereafter; suffice it that a great burden
was lifted off my mind. Having been prevented attending morning service
by the detective’s visit, I went to church in the evening; but returned
little the better, spiritually, I fear, for an hour’s sermon in which the
preacher—a portly, well-nourished personage just then very popular in the
fashionable world—dilated with much unction upon the terrors of hell, and
the extreme difficulty of avoiding them, the impossibility of so doing,
in fact, for ninety-nine hundredths of even ‘professing Christians’—so
called—let alone the not inconsiderable remainder of the human race.
What a gospel to set forth! What a Moloch to offer as supreme object of
adoration! Yet this congregation, so representative of rank and wealth,
listened quite complacently, without the smallest evidence of criticism
or of revolt. Had they no heart to feel with? No brains with which to
think? I walked homeward disturbed and sad.
Before the portico of Lord Longmoor’s house stood a travelling carriage,
off which the men-servants were loading down a mighty array of boxes and
trunks. And it was Lady Longmoor herself, surely—I could not mistake
the buoyant step, the gay poise of the head, as of one that should say,
‘Look, good people all, look! I like it, I am well worth it’—who swept
up the steps and into the lighted hall! Why this sudden descent of her
Magnificence, and whence?
I made my way round to the side-door and let myself in, unperceived as I
hoped.
But in the corridor William met me with a somewhat distracted countenance.
‘My lord is asking for you, sir,’ he said. ‘He arrived back about half
an hour ago. I persuaded him to dine at once. His lordship seems quite
upset, sir—not at all well. But he was very urgent to see you directly,
whenever you came in.’
I own my pulse quickened as I went along the corridor and into the
dining-room, where I found Hartover at table. He turned round, but
without rising, and held out both hands to me.
‘Oh! there you are, thank goodness,’ he said. ‘I have been haunted by a
childish fear you would have vanished—been spirited back to Cambridge.’
I forced a laugh and inquired after Lord Longmoor.
‘It is genuine this time. My father is really ill—so ill that I felt
obliged to take the disagreeable things he said to me in good part. Oh!
you were right to make me go to him, Brownlow. And I must go again. It
is scandalous the way he is left to the mercy of doctors, and parsons,
and servants—such a crew, upon my word. My stepmother away somewhere—of
course amusing herself—I suppose up in the North with—oh! we’ll name no
names. Safer not’—he added with a sneer.
I enlightened him as to her ladyship’s present whereabouts.
‘So much the better,’ he returned. ‘Only she will be disappointed if she
imagines I intend to clear out. She must put up with my neighbourhood,
and hear what I have to say, too, whether she likes it or not. By the
way, though, Brownlow, have you dined?’
I felt incapable of eating a mouthful of food just then, so lied, heaven
forgive me, telling him I had; and, drawing up a chair, sat down beside
the table at right angles to him.
‘Yes, I must certainly go to my father again,’ Hartover repeated.
‘Disagreeable as he invariably manages to be to me, I believe he would
have been glad if I had stayed on now. But I couldn’t—I couldn’t. The
suspense was too great. Have you seen her, Brownlow?’
‘Yes,’ I said. This was no time for elaborate explanations or fine
phrases. The simple truth simply told would be best. ‘And your suspicions
were not unfounded.’
The boy pushed away his plate, set his elbow on the table, rested his
cheek in his hand, turning his face towards me. It had gone thin and very
white; but he was perfectly composed, bracing himself to bear what might
be coming with the pride of his high-breeding.
‘Very well. Go on,’ he said.
‘She was Marsigli’s accomplice. She instigated the theft because she
wanted him removed and silenced. He stood between her and the fulfilment
of her ambition—of her design to marry you.’
‘Go on,’ said Hartover, as I paused.
‘But we can afford to judge her duplicity less harshly, because she has
paid the extreme penalty of it—the heaviest penalty which can be exacted.’
‘What?’
Hartover’s lips formed the words, although no sound issued from them.
‘She and Marsigli had a violent altercation, with accusations and abuse
on both sides. In a fit of ungovernable fury he stabbed her.’
Again the boy’s lips formed a soundless question, while from white his
face went grey. Sweat broke out on his forehead; but he still remained
composed, still looked at me steadily.
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘Fédore is dead.’
Then his eyes closed, and I myself turned queerly cold and faint. He
looked so young, so almost fragile, that it seemed an intolerable cruelty
thus to deal him blow on blow. I could have cried aloud to him to forgive
me; yet to hesitate, still more to plead for myself, would be a greater
cruelty still.
‘You are quite sure of—of your facts, Brownlow?’ he said, at last.
‘Quite sure,’ I answered. ‘The police had traced Marsigli to the house on
a former occasion. They were watching for his coming, and called on me to
identify him. I was present. I saw what took place.’
Here William came in bringing another course. Hartover motioned him
peremptorily to the door—through which, with a backward look of
astonishment, inquiry, alarm, the poor fellow, tray and all, fled.
‘I do not understand.’ Hartover spoke slowly and carefully, each word
standing oddly apart. ‘Perhaps I am stupid—but why he—Marsigli—should’⸺
And there he stopped.
‘It was an act of vengeance, of revenge. She had deserted him; and now,
as he believed, betrayed him to the police in the hope of being finally
rid of him.’
‘Deserted—how deserted?’ Hartover demanded, with sudden arrogance.
‘Fédore was his wife. He and she were married here in London three years
ago. A copy of the marriage certificate, taken from the register of the
church where the ceremony was performed, was shown me this morning.
It is perfectly in order and establishes the legality of the marriage
absolutely.’
‘The—then’—he asked—‘am I to understand that my marriage’⸺
‘Is void. A fraud—legally Fédore was nothing to you.’
The boy’s hand sank on to the table, with a jangle of glasses overset
among the silver. He turned away his head.
The moment was critical. I awaited the outcome of it in rather sickening
dread. Hartover’s physical courage I knew to be above reproach—of the
stuff which charges gaily up to the mouths of the enemy’s guns, or
leads a forlorn hope. But, here, moral not physical courage was on
trial. Had he sufficient moral stamina to stand the test? And, as the
seconds passed, thankful conviction grew on me that he had. There would
be no storm now, either of anger or of tears. Hysterics and blind rage
alike are the sign of weakness, superficial, and, as often as not, a
mere matter of nerves. But here we had got down to the solid rock of
character, of inbred tradition and instinctive pride of race. By the
greatness of the deception practised on him, of the discovery that he
had been the prey and plaything of a designing woman whose care and love
masked intensity of worldly greed, and of the humiliation consequent
on this, the boy’s self-respect was too deeply involved. Whatever he
suffered he would keep to himself.
Still, I own his next move, when it came, surprised me by what I can only
call its virility of conception.
He threw back his head, got up, walked across to the fireplace and, with
his hand on the bell-rope, the ghost of a smile—the bravest, most piteous
smile I have ever seen—upon his lips, said:
‘I’m right in thinking, am I not, Brownlow, you told me my stepmother
arrived just as you came in?’
I answered in the affirmative, not a little perplexed as to what was to
follow.
He rang, and when William appeared gave orders her ladyship be informed
that Lord Hartover requested to see her.
‘Let Lady Longmoor be told I will be in the white drawing-room, and that
I beg she will join me there with as little delay as possible.’
Then to me:
‘You will come too, Brownlow, please. I prefer to have a witness to our
conversation.’
So to the white drawing-room we went—a small but lovely room, on the
walls of which hung a couple of superb Vandykes, portraits of a former
Lord Hartover and his brother, Stephen Esdaile, exquisite if slightly
effeminate-looking young gallants of unhappy Charles the First’s court.
I had noticed these pictures, with admiration, yesterday when making my
round of the house. In Stephen Esdaile I discovered, as I thought, a
distinct resemblance to his descendant my ex-pupil, granting the latter
long curled love-locks and a yellow silk brocade coat.
Her Magnificence kept us waiting some ten minutes, to arrive at last
with a charming effect of haste, still wearing a brown travelling dress,
a white lace scarf thrown negligently over her fair head. She was all
smiles, all pretty excitement.
‘Dearest George—what a charming surprise!’
And she advanced, preparing to bestow on him a chastely maternal kiss.
But the boy avoided it dexterously, and bent low over her hand, just
not touching it with his lips instead. Her ladyship, as I judged by her
rising colour, was not insensible to the slight though she rattled on
gaily enough.
‘And our good Mr. Brownlow too! How really delightful! Surprise on
surprise. But, George’⸺
Her tone changed, a note of anxiety, real or assumed, piercing the
playfulness, not to say levity, of it.
‘Is anything wrong? You look positively ghastly, my poor child—as white
as a sheet. Tell me—nothing is the matter—nothing serious?’
‘Oh dear, no,’ Hartover answered. ‘Nothing serious is ever the matter in
our family, is it? We bask in perpetual sunshine, are clothed in scarlet
with other delights, fare sumptuously every day and all the rest of it.
Serious? Of course not. What could touch us?’
Lady Longmoor smiled, raising her eyebrows and throwing me a meaning
glance. She believed, or pretended to believe, the boy was not sober, and
wished me to know as much.
‘If it amuses you to talk nonsense, do so by all means,’ she said. ‘Only
I am afraid you will have to forgive my not stopping here very long to
listen to it, for I am simply expiring of fatigue’—she stifled a neat
little yawn—‘and want to go quietly to bed.’
‘I am sorry,’ Hartover answered courteously, ‘if I have been
inconsiderate. But I thought you might care to have some news of my
father. I am just back from Bath.’
‘Indeed!’ Lady Longmoor exclaimed. ‘And pray who, or what, took you to
poor dead-alive innocent Bath?’
‘My father sent for me, and, what’s more, saw me. He struck me as rather
badly out of sorts and lonely.’
‘Ah! yes,’ she said, turning to me with the prettiest air of distress
imaginable, ‘it is so terribly trying, Mr. Brownlow. I cannot bear
leaving my dear lord in his wretched state of health. It makes me
miserable. But what is to be done? Some one must look into things from
time to time, you know. It is wrong to leave dear beautiful Hover
entirely to the agent, the servants, and so on. Of course, they are as
faithful and devoted as possible—but still it is only wise—don’t you
think?—only right—I should go there occasionally. Though I hate business,
I do what I can.’
‘I hope to relieve you of the bulk of those bothers in future,’ Hartover
put in quietly.
‘You—you charming scatterbrain? What next? No, _mon enfant_, no—they are
not _de votre âge_, responsibility and business worries. Continue to play
at soldiers and amuse yourself while you can.’
‘I am tired of playing at soldiers: so confoundedly tired of it that,
once I am my own master—I come of age next month, you remember,—I mean to
send in my papers. There is nothing to keep me in London now’⸺
‘Nothing—nobody, to keep you in London now?’ she interrupted teasingly.
I listened in some trepidation. She trod on dangerous ground. Had the boy
sufficient reserve force, after the ordeal he had so lately been through,
to keep his temper?
‘No, nothing,’ he repeated. ‘I think there had better be no
misunderstanding between us upon that point—and upon some others. They
need clearing up—have needed it for a long time past. That is the reason
of my asking to see you to-night. In the ordinary course of events we
don’t, as you know, often meet. I have to seize my opportunity when I am
fortunate enough to get it. Plainly, I do not believe my father can live
very long’⸺
‘And plainly,’ she retorted, ‘I do not think his life is at all likely
to be lengthened, dearest George, by your troubling him with absurd
plans for throwing up your commission, leaving London, and taking over
the management of things in general at Hover. For years Jack Esdaile has
employed himself, in the sweetest way, just out of pure friendship and
kindness of heart, in looking after the Yorkshire property, and your
father has been more than satisfied. But it is too ridiculous for me to
argue with you about it. Things will go on in the future precisely as
they have gone on in the past. Only I really must protest against your
father being disturbed and annoyed directly my back is turned. We all
thought you had settled down more of late, George, and had grown a little
more reasonable.’
‘Of late? Since when, pray?’ Hartover demanded.
‘Oh! why since’⸺
Lady Longmoor looked down as though embarrassed.
‘But after all, what is the use of mincing matters?’ she went on. ‘I
cannot help knowing you young men have your _affaires de cœur_—your
entanglements, shall we say?—and that these, although of course
objectionable, things one doesn’t talk about, do sometimes have a
steadying effect which conduces to the peace and comfort of your—the
young men’s, I mean—near relations.’
‘You are speaking of an entanglement of mine?’ Hartover asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘An entanglement, an infatuation, which, as Mr.
Brownlow knows, I have deplored for years and done my best to combat; but
which—remember the person had already left my service—has, I understand,
recently been legalised.’
‘Who told you this?’ Hartover said hoarsely.
Lady Longmoor raised her eyes and glanced at me, smiling.
‘That good, faithful creature, Halidane.—Wait a moment, George. Let me
finish my sentence. He had the information, as I understand, direct from
Mr. Brownlow, to whom you yourself wrote announcing the event.’
The boy gave me a look of sorrowful reproach, remembrance of which, even
at this distance of time, blinds my eyes with tears as I write.
‘You too, old man,’ he said, very softly. ‘Gad, it needed but that.’
And he turned on his heel and moved towards the door.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Both by profession and inclination I am a man of peace. But for once my
sluggish blood boiled; and it would have been a nasty hour for Halidane
had his smug and rosy countenance come within reach of my fists. Many
annoyances I had forgiven him, many more was prepared to forgive. But
that he should sow discord between Hartover and me at this particular
juncture outpaced my power of forgiveness. The fellow had kept a stone in
his pocket for years. Now he threw it—meanly and spitefully, by the hand
of a woman, thereby making it more difficult for me to parry the blow or
to retaliate. Hence I subscribed most heartily, I am afraid, to any and
every evil which might befall him in this world or the next!
‘Either your ladyship’s memory is at fault, or your informant is guilty
of a remarkably odious falsehood,’ I said, so grimly as to disconcert
my fair hearer not a little, I thought. ‘I should have supposed it
unnecessary to declare that I have never discussed Lord Hartover or his
affairs with Mr. Halidane. Any such discussion would be repugnant to me
in the highest degree. If Mr. Halidane is acquainted with the contents
of any letter addressed to me by Lord Hartover, he must have acquired
that knowledge by methods reflecting but scanty credit upon his sense of
honour, let alone his sense of common honesty. Yet I cannot pretend to
be greatly surprised. For on one occasion, at least, I have had reason to
accuse him of entering my college rooms, for purposes of his own, during
my absence.’
And I recounted, very briefly, what I had seen and heard on the night of
the fire at the Master’s Lodge.
Lady Longmoor, none too sure of the success of her last move, seized upon
the new topic with avidity.
‘Ah! yes,’ she cried; ‘we heard about that from Dr. Marston. He was
loud in praise of your wonderful courage in saving the life of his
niece. According to him you performed prodigies of valour. I was so
interested in meeting her—Miss Davis, no, Dynevor—of course, I remember,
Dynevor—quite a nice girl and—and so very much in love. Oh! yes; it was
all extraordinarily romantic, you know, George—just like a story in a
book.’
The impertinence of these great folk! The tone of condescension and
patronage in which her ladyship alluded to Alice Dynevor was by no means
lost on me; but, I am afraid, ten thousand Alice Dynevors and their
impertinent treatment at the hands of fine ladies weighed as rather
less than nothing with me, just now, as against Hartover’s apparent
alienation. To reconquer his confidence and sympathy, to convince him of
my unswerving loyalty, was the sole and only thing I cared about.
During the whole interview we had been kept standing, since Lady Longmoor
remained standing herself. I fancied she had an eye to rapid withdrawal
whenever a promising strategic opportunity presented itself. As she
spoke, she too moved towards the door. But Hartover, who, to my great
comfort, had paused, listening both to her impertinently enthusiastic
flourish and my disclaimer, faced about blocking her passage.
‘One moment,’ he said. ‘Has Mr. Halidane, may I inquire, crowned his
amiable mission as scandalmonger by communicating this piece of stolen
information to my father?’
‘No. He felt it was his duty to tell your father, but very properly
consulted me first. And I dissuaded him.’
‘How charming of you!’ from Hartover, not without sarcasm.
‘I begged him to wait—not to speak of it yet. Later, I felt,
circumstances might not improbably arise which would compel us to break
it to your father. But naturally I wished to spare him as long as⸺’
‘Pray, is that a threat?’
‘Hardly a threat. But a warning—yes, possibly, dearest George. Take my
advice and lay it to heart. And, since plain speaking seems the fashion
to-night, you know your manner towards me is excessively strange—barely
civil, in fact. Have you been drinking, by chance?’
The boy shook his head; but with an air! Insolence being to the fore, it
was diamond cut diamond as between stepmother and stepson.
‘Oh! dear, no. I have touched nothing stronger than water to-day,’ he
said.
‘Really! I am sorry to hear it, as that leaves no valid excuse for your
behaviour. But I am tired; and, frankly, I can’t admit any right on your
part to keep me here listening first to nonsense, and then to incivility.
Good-night, Mr. Brownlow. I do not know how long you propose to stay, so
good-bye, too—in case, which is possible, I do not see you again. And
now, George, be good enough to open the door for me.’
From all which I derived the conviction that, for once, her ladyship had
pretty thoroughly lost her temper. Then, as Hartover did not move:
‘My dear George, do you hear? Even if you unfortunately have no love
for your mother, you may still pay some respect, some ordinary courtesy
towards your father’s wife.’
‘For my father’s wife I have all possible respect,’ he began.
My lady’s dark eyebrows went up until they nearly met her fair hair.
‘Indeed! You have a most original fashion of showing it!’
‘But—for I, too, can issue a warning—I have very little of either for my
cousin Jack Esdaile’s mistress.’
An instant of stupefaction.
Then: ‘How dare you! How dare you!’ Lady Longmoor stormed.
She took a couple of steps forward, with the intention, I verily believe,
of boxing Hartover’s ears soundly. But he was too adroit for her.
Catching her by both hands, he held them—not roughly, but with a gallant,
if naughty grace, vastly engaging. Some colour had come into his face.
His eyes and lips laughed saucily.
‘No, no, your Magnificence,’ he said. ‘That belongs to the past, to the
old nursery days, here and at Hover, when I was too small to hit back. I
have grown up since then, and we are more evenly matched.’
Ought I to interfere? To do so was to risk losing Hartover’s trust and
affection for ever. Therefore I thought, and still think, not.
Meanwhile, whether contact with physical force—to her a novel
experience—tamed her, or whether conscience was the determining factor, I
am uncertain; but—
‘You young boor!’ she exclaimed; and there ended all direct protest. For,
at once, she began to try and make terms with him—an uneasiness, not to
say an edge of fear, perceptible behind the fine chill of her manner.
‘Pray, what do you expect to gain by insulting me thus?’
‘What I have never succeeded in gaining before—a clear stage and no
favour.’
‘Be a little more explicit, please—that is, if you really have anything
to be explicit about.’
‘Oh! dear, yes; plenty, plenty. I’ve no lack of material,’ Hartover
answered. ‘But won’t you come and sit down, since you are tired, so that
we may talk it over comfortably?’
And, releasing one hand, the boy led her across the lovely room to a
large white and gold settee—prettily, as he might have led some charming
partner after a dance—and, finally, sat down there beside her.
‘Is it necessary that a third person be present,’ she asked, ‘at this
extraordinary interview?’
‘I prefer Brownlow to stay, if he will,’ Hartover answered. ‘It is
desirable in your interests just as much as in my own.’
‘A packed jury! However, I am at your mercy—two men to one woman. If you
command I cannot do otherwise than obey.’
And she folded her hands in her lap, settling her beautiful shoulders
back against the soft white and gold cushions.
‘Now for this very chivalrous bargaining,’ she said scornfully. ‘For a
bargain is just what it comes to, neither more nor less, I imagine.’
‘Yes,’ Hartover answered; while as he spoke sauciness, laughter, almost
youth itself, died out of his face, leaving it grave, drawn, and very
pallid. ‘You are right. Between you and me, as matters now stand,
your Magnificence, it all comes to the dirty, low-caste business of a
bargain—and a hard one. Only let us both speak the truth, please, in as
far as we are able. It may save some ugly fighting hereafter.—You say
you heard of the legalising of a certain entanglement from Mr. Halidane.
Was that your first knowledge of it?’
‘Rumours may have reached me earlier.’
‘Through whom?’—Hartover went white about the lips—‘Through Fédore?’
‘You forget, she had left my service.’
‘But had no rumours reached you through her—Fédore—of another marriage,
about three years ago?’
Lady Longmoor moved slightly, throwing back her head. She was very angry,
but she was also very nervous—so, at least, I fancied.
‘This persistent asking of riddles becomes monotonous,’ she said. ‘Of
what exactly are you speaking, my dear George?’
‘Of Fédore’s marriage to your butler, Marsigli. They were confidential
servants, to both of whom we all understood you were a good deal
attached. It seems improbable, when they married, you should be ignorant
of the fact.’
‘Oh! there you are totally mistaken,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘The
private lives of my servants are no concern of mine. So long as they
serve me well, and there aren’t any scandals in the household, I am
not so foolish as to invite annoyance by asking questions. If they are
silent, I am silent likewise. I have no belief in fussing—especially
when the establishment runs smooth. And then—tastes no doubt differ—but
I really have more important and interesting things to think about than
sentimental complications on the part of the maids.’
‘Even when one of the maids proposes to become your daughter-in-law?’ the
boy put in bitterly. ‘Come, your Magnificence, what’s the use of hedging.
Did you or didn’t you know?’
But here her ladyship saw fit to change her tactics by making a spirited
raid into the enemy’s country.
‘And if rumours, again, had reached me,’ she asked, ‘what then?’
‘This—that, knowing, you still said nothing, made no attempt to prevent
my doing this infamous thing.’
‘Stop, stop,’ Lady Longmoor cried. ‘You forget there is quite another
aspect of the case. If I did not intervene it was simply because I knew
intervention to be hopeless. Would you have listened to me? Have you ever
listened? I am only human, after all, and my stock of patience, alas! is
not inexhaustible. You can hardly deny having made heavy drafts on it, my
dear George, for a number of years now.’
‘I deny nothing under that head,’ Hartover said quietly.
‘Your escapades—to call them nothing worse—have caused us—my poor lord
and me—endless vexation and trouble. I was weary of hearing about them
from—oh! well, from a number of different sources. People are not slow
in repeating what is offensive, and your name has become a positive
by-word in your regiment for every description of objectionable folly. Is
it surprising if, at last, I gave up in despair? No doubt, it was wrong
of me’—she glanced with very moving appeal in my direction—‘but really,
things came to a point last winter, when I was tempted to wash my hands
of you altogether. You must go your own way. I was helpless to restrain
you. All I asked was some little respite from worry, from the perpetual
wear and tear of concealing these wretched stories from your father.’
‘Thank you. I understand,’ Hartover said. ‘And so, other plans for
wrecking me having miscarried—you and Jack Esdaile devised a good
many—you connived at this abomination, just as you connived at—at—her
running after me at Hover long ago, before Brownlow came. You encouraged
her going to see me when I was ill—she told me so herself, told me that
and a lot more too. And⸺’
He paused, leaning forward, looking on the ground, while his speech grew
thick and unsteady.
‘And the fact—however vile the deception she practised on me—that she
was kind, nursed me, helped me fight against my bad habits, pulled me
through, does not lessen your guilt by one iota either towards her or
towards me. Her death lies at your door. Marsigli, poor brute, may have
struck the actual blow, but you are responsible for it.’
‘Death? Fédore dead?—Marsigli?—What do you mean, George? What, in
heaven’s name, are you talking about?’
In her extreme excitement and agitation Lady Longmoor seized the boy by
the arm; but he shook himself free, getting up and backing away from her
with a movement of uncontrollable revolt.
‘Oh! yes,’ he said; ‘I know you’ve wanted—you’ve wanted for years to
finish with me, to wipe me out. You’ve failed; but—but still, at the cost
of a life. Explain to her, Brownlow, please. Tell her. It’s beyond me. I
can’t.’
CHAPTER XL.
And so for the second time, on this strange Sunday evening, I was called
on to recount what I had heard and seen in the sad, blood-stained little
house down at Chelsea. And having done so, I withdrew, Hartover making
no effort to detain me. For I felt, and I think he felt also, whatever
remained to be said must be said behind closed doors, since it would be
both unworthy and impolitic to subject this proud woman and great lady to
further mortification. I left the two alone, the more willingly as the
boy had proved himself, kept his head, kept his temper, shown himself
at once astute and fearless. I could trust him to strike a bargain—for,
as he said, between himself and her ladyship a bargain, and a hard one,
it henceforth must be—discreditable neither to honour nor to justice. I
could trust him not to be vindictive. He had not been so towards Fédore.
He would not be so towards his stepmother.
I went downstairs and into the dining-room again, where I found William
still making a pretence of clearing the table, though it was close on
midnight.
‘His lordship ate no dinner to call a dinner, sir,’ he said tentatively;
‘and after travelling all day too!’
But I refused to be drawn. William’s curiosity would, in all probability,
be satisfied by the contents of the morning papers; and meanwhile I,
unused to such strenuous demands upon my imagination and nervous energy,
stood sorely in need of some rest.
Finding me a hopeless subject, the faithful fellow, to my relief,
departed, permitting me to meditate undisturbed.—What of the future,
Hartover’s future? He had borne himself well and manfully throughout the
evening; but would the events, now so deeply affecting him, make more
than a passing impression? Would he, a few months hence, return to his
former unprofitable ways? Would the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, the pride of life prove too strong after all, and work the undoing
of this modern Alcibiades? And what of my own future? Should I go back
to the untroubled scholarly life of Cambridge to live and die a college
don? Or, supposing he and I continued, in some sort, our renewed intimacy
of these last few days, had I the strength and wisdom to guide him? Were
we quite at one, moreover, Hartover and I, or had Halidane succeeded in
sowing discord, a suspicion which would remain and rankle in the dear
boy’s mind?
My thoughts were far from cheerful as I sat there alone, the great house
quiet within, and London hushed to midnight stillness without. Would
good come out of all this evil upon which, shrinking and aghast, I had
so lately looked? Deeper question yet—is it possible that evil ever can
breed good? And my thought wandered homelessly through labyrinths of
speculation regarding dualism, that apparently eternal inter-relation,
inter-action of evil and of good, as manifested in nature, in history, in
national and personal character, alike. Is there, verily, no good without
alloy of evil, no evil lacking a strain of good? I thought of Fédore,
as an example, at once befriending and devouring Hartover—whereby this
mystery of dualism appeared painfully deepened and increased.
But then—unable, I suppose, to support the sorrow of its own homelessness
any longer—my thought turned to the sheltered corner of the garden at
Westrea—where the high red-brick wall forms an angle with the mellow
red-brick house front—to which, in the sweet May mornings, the neat
box-edged borders gay with spring flowers, the brimming water, the
avenue of oaks and the pasture gently sloping upward to the sky-line, so
pleasantly set out before us, Nellie Braithwaite would bring her sewing
and I the book from which to read aloud.—Ah! surely this—this had been
wholly without alloy, purely and perfectly good! I pictured the scene in
all its details, felt again the emotions engendered by it, and received
comfort to my soul—for—not for very long, alas!
The door opened. Hartover swung in. His face was still drawn and
thin, but a spot of colour burned on either cheek and his eyes were
extraordinarily bright.
‘That’s over,’ he said. ‘It has been damnable, utterly damnable. But it
is done with. Now, please God, we start afresh—don’t move, Brownlow.’
This as I prepared to rise.
‘I must talk,’ he went on—‘talk to you now while the hot fit is still on
me, so that you may register and, later, whip me up if I check or show
any sign of running slack. Remind me of—of to-night. I have got what I
bargained for—my clear stage and no favour. My stepmother signs a truce,
under compulsion of—oh! yes, I know how ugly it sounds!—compulsion of
fear, the fear of exposure and social ruin. If she interferes between me
and my father, he shall be told certain facts. If, after his death, I
find she has played tricks with the property, I shall go to law, which
will be equivalent to publishing those same facts to all the world. If
she keeps faith with me, I will stand by her and do everything in my
power to shield her name from scandal and disgrace.—For, Brownlow, those
who sold her, as a little more than a child, to a man nearly twice her
age, and a weak-brained, dyspeptic valetudinarian at that, did a very
cruel thing.—All the same, the Rusher has to vanish. As long as my father
lives he shall never darken these doors, or those of Hover, again. That
is absolute.’
While he spoke, Hartover roamed up and down the room restlessly, working
off his excitement. Now he came and, sitting down on the arm of my chair,
laid his hand gently on my shoulder.
‘Dear old friend, forgive me,’ he said. ‘I ought to have known better.
It was only for an instant I distrusted you; but I was so knocked about.
The road to freedom—for it is freedom, through all this shame and misery,
this horror of crime and violence, I recognise that—has been very
frightful to tread. Nothing can ever look quite the same again. I am new
born, not only to man’s estate, but to a new vision and understanding of
what I may and will, God helping me—I don’t shy at a little bit of piety
for once!—do with my life. Only the pains of that new birth have been as
the pains of hell, dear old man.’
And here I think the tears came, for the boy’s hand went up hastily to
his eyes, and he turned away his face—from which I opined it would be
some time before he and youth parted company, even yet!
‘Gad!’ he said, ‘I believe I should be thankful never to set eyes on a
petticoat again, as long as I live; but,’ with a rather weary little
laugh, ‘I suppose the misogynist attitude of mind won’t last, whatever
else does! Look here, Brownlow, how soon can you be ready to go up to
Hover with me? I hear the grouse promise well this season, and I’ll be
hanged if Colonel Jack puts a ha’porth of shot into a solitary one of
them. And, oh! dear me, I want to get away from London, away to the clean
wind and the open moors and—forget.’
I took no reading party to North Wales that summer, but rode Warcop’s
horses and tramped the fells with Hartover instead. And when I went back
to Cambridge at the beginning of the October term, the boy—having sent in
his papers on his twenty-first birthday—went back with me, thus carrying
out his old wish of passing at least one year at the university.
And Marsigli never came to trial, but died by his own hand in gaol, to
Lady Longmoor’s immense relief, as I imagine; but to Detective Inspector
Lavender’s immense disgust and discouragement of belief in his luck.
‘The authorities may ignore it, sir,’ he said to me; ‘but I can’t. That
affair hammered more nails into the coffin of my professional reputation,
or ought to have done so if every man had his deserts, than I care to
count.’
CHAPTER XLI.
Little further remains to be told. The story of my life, that is of its
more interesting and critical portion, which I began to write in the long
summer mornings when hay harvest kept more than half the parish busy
in the fields, has occupied my leisure hours until now, when the first
December snow showers fling a glittering mantle about royal Hover, rising
there across the valley amid the domes and spires of the mighty pines.
And, as the record nears completion, the question comes, what shall
be done with it? Shall I lock it away with other treasured sacred
things—a few letters, one or two faded portraits (early examples of the
photographer’s doubtfully flattering art), a woman’s glove, too, and
a tag of once white ribbon foxed by age—a little hoard to be burned
unlooked on when the peaceful churchyard, here close at hand, receives
the baser part of me, and my soul goes back to God who gave it? Or,
when that time comes, undreaded yet uncraved for—since life still is
sweet—shall this record pass into the hands of her who has been its chief
inspiration, the Laura, worthy of how far more melodious a Petrarch, the
Beatrice, worthy of how far more eloquent a Dante, than my obscure and
humble self? Is it mere weakness, outcome of an old man’s doting and
futile vanity, clutching at the shadow where the substance is, and always
had been, beyond his grasp, which makes me thus desire—when revelation
can no longer bring heartburnings or disquiet—those wise and glorious
eyes should read the secret of my love and of my sacrifice at last?
Sentimental? And, after all, why not? For who am I to condemn sentiment,
which, if it contain no corrupt and morbid elements, is surely the
strongest driving power towards noble deeds and heroical ventures human
history can show? To decry or fear sentiment is to decry or fear the
finest achievements of art, of literature, of romance, I had almost said
of religion itself—all that, in short, upon which spirit, as distinct
from matter, feeds and thrives.
And this, quite naturally if not quite obviously, brings me back to the
year Hartover was up at Cambridge. During the few days I spent there
myself, while making my peace with the members of the deserted reading
party and, to some extent, with the good Master himself, I contrived
to find time for an afternoon at Westrea. Nellie Braithwaite must hear
something of all which had lately happened; yet to inform her by letter
appeared to me inadvisable. I did not approve of carrying on any sort of
correspondence behind her father’s back. I must not raise hopes which
might never be realised; but I might, without indiscretion, let her know
Hartover was not only free, but fired, through that same freedom, with
liberal ideas and worthy purposes—let her know, further, I had been
faithful to my promise, and had thrown in my lot with the dear boy’s for
good and all, so that nothing short of rejection on his part would make
me leave him again.
But I speedily perceived, with mingled shame and admiration, any fear
of raising undue hopes was quite uncalled for. I had underrated alike
the courage and sensibility of Nellie Braithwaite’s nature. For her
gladness at my news was veiled by a sweet reserve both of expression and
inquiry—assurance of Hartover’s well-being bringing all her maidenly
dignity into play. Henceforth, as I saw, she would wrap her love about
with silence, hiding it even from me, her chosen friend, in delicate yet
lofty pride. No finger would she raise to beckon Hartover or recall that
early love passage; while, as I also saw, my presence in future would be
less acceptable to her because, from my closeness to Hartover, I formed,
in a measure, a link between him and herself.
I left Westrea, on my return journey to Cambridge, somewhat crestfallen.
As reward of my zeal in fulfilling—and successfully, moreover—the promise
I gave her, was I to be exiled from her confidence? That seemed arbitrary
and, indeed, a little unjust. Whereupon I made a reflection—made how many
thousand times already by how many thousands of my sex!—that the ways of
woman, be she pure and noble or, alas! signally the reverse, are one and
all mysterious, past forecasting and past finding out.
And at that I had to leave it. For Hartover, on his part, spoke no word,
gave no sign. Hover, the moors, the stables, the kennels, and, as I
observed with satisfaction, so much of the varied business of the great
property as he could get in touch with, filled his time and mind to the
exclusion of all question of—in his own phrase—‘petticoats.’ Was Nellie
Braithwaite forgotten then? Once again I must be stern with myself; for
how should it advantage me even if she was?
But specially did stables and kennels bulk big among the dear boy’s many
interests and occupations during that pleasant long vacation, whereby
Warcop was made the happiest of men. For one morning, about a fortnight
after our arrival, Hartover threw a letter to me across the breakfast
table.
‘Read that,’ he said. ‘The Rusher signs his abdication—gives up the
hounds, moves his horses—or what he is pleased to call his—I think I
know who has paid for them and their keep for a good dozen years now—and
hunts in Leicestershire this winter. My father must not, of course,
be worried, so her Magnificence forwards the letter to me. Really, it
strikes me as rather pathetic, Brownlow. How are the mighty fallen! But,
pathetic or not, the hounds must be hunted this season or the mouth of
our enemy—Bramhall, to wit—will be altogether too extensively enlarged
over us.—Oh! well, if it comes to that, I suppose I can hunt them well
enough myself, with Warcop’s help, putting in a day every fortnight or so
from Cambridge during term time. I’ll back myself to be a popular master
before the end of the winter, though there will be prejudices to live
down, no doubt. Gad! so much the better—_carrière ouverte aux talents_.
After all, I can canoodle and coax against most people, you know, and be
nine foot high, too, when I like.’
Which was perfectly true. Had I not experience thereof? I fell in with
this idea the more readily since our English institution of fox-hunting
plays so large a part in country life, bringing landlord and tenant
together on equal terms, and establishing a friendly and wholesome
relation invaluable as between class and class. Mastership of the Hover,
though infringing somewhat upon the routine of his college work, was in
my opinion calculated to prove an excellent introduction to those larger
and immensely more important forms of mastership which, for Hartover,
seemed to loom up by no means far ahead.
But creaking gates hang long, the proverb says. And this proved true of
the invalid at Bath. The months passed, and yet Lord Longmoor, though
increasingly fanciful, increasingly querulous, increasingly a sick man,
in truth, still kept a feeble hold of life through autumn, winter,
spring, and on into the golden heats of midsummer. The May term again
drew to its close, and with it Hartover’s sojourn at Cambridge. How had
the university affected and influenced him? Chiefly, I believed, as a
pause, a place of recovery before further effort. Out of the great world
he had come, surfeited by all too heavy a meal—for one of his age—of
the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Back into the
great world, it was ordained, he must return. But he had rested by the
way, had slept off the effects, so to speak, of that over-much and evil
fruit-eating, had at once steadied and grown younger.
Meanwhile he was the darling of the college; where, from the good Master,
through ranks of dons and gownsmen, down to gyps and bed-makers, he was
an object of interest and of admiration. And this less from snobbery, the
vulgar spirit—too common among us—which ‘loves a lord,’ than from his own
charm and grace and the irresistible way he had with him. The affection
he inspired and interest he excited, touched and amused him, when he
happened to be conscious of it; but his eyes, so I fancied, were set on
something beyond, and as the time of departure drew near I seemed to
observe in him a growing preoccupation and restlessness.
And so the anniversary of his hurried journey to find me came
round—the anniversary, too, of Fédore’s death. Did he remember it, I
wondered—remember his torment of suspense and desolation? He never spoke
of Fédore, or of the crowded events of those few rather desperate days.
The recuperative power of youth is wellnigh unlimited. Was remembrance of
them erased from his mind by a natural and healthy process of attrition,
or was his silence intentional? Again I wondered.
When he left Cambridge I should go with him, and not for the long
vacation merely. But, by the Master’s kind advice and permission, I was
to retain both my fellowship and my rooms, putting in so much residence
in the course of the year as I could manage. Of this I was glad. Not for
an instant did I hesitate to follow Hartover; but it would, I own, have
caused me a keen pang to sever my connection with the university entirely.
All day, on the anniversary of Fédore’s death, I had been packing
and sorting my now not inconsiderable library, destroying—odious
occupation—old letters and papers. While so engaged the thought of Nellie
Braithwaite had been curiously, almost oppressively, present to me. Only
thrice had I seen her during the past eight or nine months. I should, in
all probability, see her even less frequently in future. Yes, Hartover’s
emancipation, strangely enough, parted us far more effectually than
Hartover’s wrongdoings or Hartover’s troubles ever had. Would she live
on, without change of estate or of place, from girlhood to womanhood,
womanhood to old age, busied with home and household, and the care of her
father, still cherishing the exquisite yet unfruitful love of her youth?
That was a lovely picture, but a sad one. As I destroyed papers, sorted
and packed my books, I almost unconsciously placed another picture beside
it. For years hence, when the shadows grew long, might it not be possible
she would weary of such an existence? Then, in the twilight, might not my
turn come, might not she and I grow old together, dwelling under the same
roof, bearing the same name at last? A lovely picture too—if a little dim
and pallid—lovely at least to me. I went on with my sorting and packing,
a smile on my lips and grip of not unpleasant pain about my heart.
Went on, until it grew too dark for me to read the names of the books
as I took them down off the shelves. I lighted the candles on my study
table, using a wax vesta from an old silver box the dear boy had once
given me. And, so doing, I recollected with a start that, absorbed in
my own preparations for departure, I had not seen him all day. The
occurrence was so unusual that, realising it, I felt somewhat uneasy.
I recollected, moreover, that he had not put in an appearance at hall.
This increased my uneasiness. I sent round to his rooms, in the big
quadrangle, only to learn that he had gone out riding early, taking no
groom with him, and leaving no information as to the probable time of his
return or as to his destination.
Nine o’clock, half-past nine, ten o’clock struck. Darling of the college
or not, at this rate my young lord ran a chance of being ignominiously
gated. Uneasiness deepened into anxiety, anxiety into downright alarm.
It was not possible to sit still in this state of suspense any longer.
I went out on to the landing, down my staircase, and half-way across
the small court—charming in the warm gloom of the midsummer night, with
its tinkling fountain, its squares and oblongs of lamplit window—when
footsteps rang out under the archway, and a young man came towards
me, not in regulation cap and gown, but high riding boots, white cord
breeches, his coat and hat appearing white also, so thickly overlaid were
they by dust.
Hartover slipped his arm within mine.
‘That’s right,’ he said, with a queer, gay, yet half-shy little laugh. ‘I
could have sworn I should find you, every feather on end, clucking after
your lost chick; so I came right on here, without stopping to change or
have a brush.’
‘But where have you been, my dear boy?’ I cried, still agitated, struck,
moreover, by a strangeness in his manner. Not that his gaiety was forced.
On the contrary, it seemed to bubble up and overflow out of some depth of
incontrollable gladness.
‘Doing the best day’s work of my life,’ he answered. ‘But let me come up
to your rooms. We can’t talk here. And there are things to explain. Good
as the day’s work is, you still have to put the finishing touch to it.
Can’t do without you, you see, in good fortune any more than in bad—even
if I wanted to, which, God knows, I don’t. But forty miles, dear old man,
in dust and sun—or nearer fifty, for, like a fool, I lost my way coming
back and gandered about for ever so long in those fenlands. Gad! how
enchanting they are though, Brownlow!—The vast reed beds, and great meres
like shining mirrors, holding miles of sky in their pretty laps, and the
long skeins of wild-fowl rising off them and calling to the sunset. I
have never understood the fascination of a flat country before. I must go
and have another look at it all some day—some day—because it will speak
to me of⸺’
He broke off. And again he laughed, mounting the dark stairs so rapidly
beside me that I had some ado to keep pace with him.
Once inside, he threw hat, gloves, and crop down on the table, blew out
the candles, and, crossing the room, lowered himself gingerly on to the
window seat.
‘Let’s sit in the dark.—Jeshurun! I am stiff, though!—You don’t mind—the
dark I mean—do you? It’s more peaceful.’
I minded nothing but delay, for a feverish impatience was upon me.
‘Yes,’ he went on; ‘the finishing touch has to be yours, Brownlow.
There’s something I want you to do for me, as usual.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘This: You remember that which happened a year ago to-day?’
His tone changed, sobered. I did remember, and told him so.
‘I have waited through a whole year as a penance—a penance self-inflicted
in expiation of certain sins. During that year I have lived cleanly.’
And I felt, rather than saw, his eyes fixed on mine—felt, too, that his
face flushed.
‘I knew perfectly well by waiting I risked losing what I supremely long
for. But I accepted that risk as part of my penance—the very heart of it,
in fact.’
‘Yes,’ I murmured, greatly marvelling to what his speech should lead up.
He leaned across and laid his hand on my knee.
‘I rode over to Westrea to-day,’ he said.
‘Westrea? What do you know—how have you heard about Westrea?’ I exclaimed.
‘From Warcop, when last we were at Hover. I could not say anything to
you, Brownlow, because I would not have you involved. The Braithwaites
were your friends, and I didn’t want, of course, to come between you and
them, which could hardly have been avoided if—well, if things had turned
out badly for me.’
Again that note of uncontrollable gladness in his voice.
‘I felt it would be unfair to ask questions of you, as I could not
explain; and the penance had to be completed in full before I could talk
of it. But Warcop was different. I had no scruple in finding out from him
where they—where she—now lived. And⸺’
He turned, leaning his elbow on the window-sill, speaking softly, and
looking out into the fair windless night.
‘I—I have seen her. I have been with her nearly all day. Braithwaite
was away, luckily—at Thetford, I believe she told me—at some political
meeting. She has not changed, except that she is even more beautiful than
I remembered. And she loves me. She will marry me, when her father gives
his consent.’
A minute or more of silence, for I could not bring myself to speak. But,
absorbed as Hartover was in his own joy, he failed to notice it, I
think. Presently he faced round, and once more I felt his eyes fixed on
mine.
‘And this is where your good offices come in, dear old man,’ he went on.
‘Of course I shall go to Braithwaite myself, and ask for her hand with
all due form and ceremony. But I want you to see or write to him too,
and back me up. Tell him I’m not the young rake and wastrel he probably
imagines me to be—and which—well—I once was. Tell him he needn’t be
afraid to trust her to me; for I know the world pretty thoroughly by
now, and still find her the noblest and most precious thing in it. Tell
him,’—and he laughed a little naughtily—‘he may just as well give in
first as last, for have her I will, if I’m obliged to kidnap her, carry
her off without with your leave or by your leave. Nothing will stop me
short of death; so he’d best accept the inevitable. I am perfectly aware
I belong to a class he’d like to exterminate—that he regards me as an
absurd anachronism, a poisonous blotch on the body politic. But, as I
was explaining to her to-day, I can’t help being who I am. This, anyhow,
is not my fault.—Ah! and that’s so delicious about her, Brownlow!—Just
what has made other women keen to catch me, actually stands in my way
with her. She doesn’t care a row of pins, I verily believe, for money,
or rank, or titles. It is I, myself, she loves, not what I can give her.
Quaint, you know, after two or three seasons of London mothers with
daughters on hand for sale—it strikes one as quaint, but, good Lord, how
mighty refreshing!’
Again he leaned his elbow on the window-sill, turning his head. I could
just make out the line of his profile, the lips parted in something
between a sigh and laughter.
‘She’s so clever, too—so splendidly awake. Picture the endless delight
of showing her beautiful things, new and beautiful places! And she is
so well read—far better read than I. That’s very much thanks to you,
Brownlow. She spoke of you so sweetly, and of the comfort and help your
friendship had been to her. I’m very grateful; though, upon my word, I
came deucedly near being jealous once or twice, and inclined to think she
praised you a wee bit too highly. But, joking apart, dear old man, you
will see Braithwaite and give me a good character?’
He rose as he spoke. It was time. I could not have endured much longer.
For I had been racked if ever man had—each sentence of Hartover’s—merry,
serious, teasing, eloquent, tender—an added turn of the screw under which
muscles parted and sinews snapped. How thankful I was to the merciful
darkness which hid me! My voice I could, to some extent, command, but by
my looks I must have been betrayed.
Hartover felt the way across to the table, picked up his hat, gloves, and
crop. Mechanically I rose too, and followed him out on to the landing.
‘The sooner the better,’ he said slyly. ‘Think how long I’ve waited!
I ascertained Braithwaite will be at home all day. Couldn’t you go
to-morrow?’
‘If I can get a conveyance,’ I answered.
‘There are my horses.’
But twenty miles’ ride out, and twenty back, with such an interview in
the interval, was, I felt, beyond my strength.
‘Oh! well; leave it to me, then. I’ll arrange,’ the boy said, ‘if you’ll
let me. Good-night, Brownlow, and God bless you! You’re the dearest and
best friend living.’
He ran down the dark stairs, and swung across the little court. I
listened, till the sound of his footsteps died out under the archway,
and went back, shutting and locking both doors behind me. Then came
the blackest hour of my life—worse than the racking—wherein I fought,
in solitude, with the seven devils of envy, hatred, and malice, the
devil of loneliness too; with the natural animal man in me, and with
visions—almost concrete in their vividness and intensity—of what Nellie’s
love must and would surely be to him on whom she bestowed it.
Of the following day I retain a strange memory, as of something unreal
and phantasmal. I believe I looked much as usual, talked as usual,
behaved in a reasonable and normal manner. But my speech and action were
alike mechanical. My brain worked, my material and physical brain, that
is; but for the time being soul and heart were dead in me. I felt no
emotion, felt nothing, indeed, save a dumb ache of longing the day were
over and I free to rest.
For I drove out to Westrea, of course. How could I do otherwise? True to
his word, Hartover had made all necessary arrangement, as he sent word to
me early. At the same time he sent round a note, with the request I would
deliver it to Nellie—of which more hereafter. I found Braithwaite at home
and greatly perturbed in mind; for, like the fearless and honourable
being she was, Nellie had already told him both the fact and purpose of
Hartover’s visit.
‘I know what brings you here, Brownlow,’ he said, as he met me in the
porch. ‘And I could wish you a worthier errand. I confess I am very sore.
I flattered myself this mad project had received its quietus long ago. I
object to it as strongly as I ever objected, and for the same reasons.
Such a marriage is equally contrary to my wishes and my convictions.
Permitting it, I, having preached to others, should indeed become myself
a castaway. What will those who share my views as to the iniquity of the
aristocratic, the feudal system—which strangles the independence and
stunts the moral and material growth of three-fifths of, so-called, free
Englishmen—think of me, when they find me throwing principle to the winds
for the vulgar satisfaction of seeing my daughter a countess?’
This, and much more to the same effect, weighted by sufficient substratum
of truth to render it difficult to combat. Not only natural and genuine
fear for Nellie’s future happiness, but all his native obstinacy was
aroused. In vain, as it seemed, I pleaded the change in Hartover, the
seriousness of his purpose, the depths of his affection, his growing
sense of responsibility. In vain, too, I made a clean breast of certain
family matters, spoke of Fédore’s unscrupulous pursuit, her ladyship’s
complicity, and of the intrigues which had surrounded Hartover, as I
feared, from childhood.
‘Granted all you say,’ he answered. ‘Granted the young man’s reformation
is sincere and promises to be lasting, can you honestly advise me,
my dear Brownlow, to let my daughter become part and parcel of a
society thus permeated by low scheming and, on your own showing, by
downright immorality? You are actuated by a fantastic and chivalrous
devotion to this handsome young princeling, which blinds you to facts.
Sensible fellow though you are, he has dazzled and bewitched you, just
as he dazzles and bewitches my poor Nellie. But having an honest and
deep-seated objection to anything in the shape of princelings, I retain
my clearness of eyesight, and am actuated by common sense and prudence
regarding the safety of my daughter.’
‘At the cost of breaking her heart?’ I rather wearily ventured.
Whereupon we started to argue the whole question over again. While thus
engaged we had sauntered to the door of the pleasant low-ceilinged
living-room opening on to the garden, which, brilliant in colour, rich
with the scent of sweet-briar and syringa, of borders thick-set with
pinks, sweet-williams and roses, basked between its high red walls in
the still afternoon sunshine. On the threshold Braithwaite turned to me,
saying almost bitterly:
‘Ah! Brownlow, I am disappointed. Why couldn’t you speak for yourself,
man? How willingly would I have given her to you, had you asked me! Often
have I hoped, since you stayed under my roof at Easter year, it might
eventually come to that.’
Well for me I had been racked and devil-hunted last night till emotion
was dead in me!
‘Why have I never spoken for myself? Because—well—look at Nellie. There
is your answer.’
And I pointed to the upward sloping pasture. Now I divined the contents
of that note which the boy had confided to me for delivery. I was not
only his ambassador, but his despatch rider. My mission hardly unfolded,
he followed daringly close behind.
For down across the turf walked Hartover leading his horse, hat in hand.
Beside him, in blue-sprigged muslin gown and lilac sun-bonnet, walked
Nellie. As we stepped out of the doorway she caught sight of us, and the
sound of her voice came in soft but rapid speech. The young man, whose
head inclined towards her, looked up and gallantly waved his hat. They
reached the bottom of the slope, and as they stood side by side on the
bank, the great brown hunter, extending its neck, snuffed the coolth off
the water. Only the brimming stream and bright garden lay between them
and us.
‘Mr. Braithwaite,’ Hartover called, ‘shall I be forced to run away with
her? Time and place favour it; and, Gad! sir, my horse has plenty left in
him yet.’
He slipped his arm round the girl’s waist and made a feint of tossing her
on to the saddle.
‘Confound the fellow’s impudence!’ Braithwaite growled, as he moved back
into the house.
But his eyes were wet. He was beaten. Youth and love had won the day, and
he knew it.
Thus came the end, or rather the beginning. For the end—as I look across
the valley this morning at royal Hover, wrapped in that glittering mantle
of new-fallen snow—is not, please God, for a long time yet.
Still, in point of fact, Nellie Braithwaite never became Lady Hartover.
For Braithwaite exacted an interval of six months before the wedding; and
before those same six months were out the poor creaking gate, away at
Bath, had creaked itself finally out of earthly existence, and into—let
us charitably hope—a more profitable heavenly one; while—such after all
is the smooth working of our aristocratic and hereditary system, with
its _le roi est mort, vive le roi_—over his great possessions his son, my
always very dear, and sometime very naughty, pupil, reigned in his stead.
As to myself, Cambridge and Hover, Hover and Cambridge, till, the home
living falling vacant, I removed myself and my books here to this
pleasant parsonage, where learned and unlearned, gentle and simple, young
and old, are good enough to come and visit me, and confide to me their
hopes, and joys, disappointments, sorrows, and sometimes—poor souls—their
sins.
THE END.
_THE TERCENTENARY OF RICHARD HAKLUYT._
_November 23, 1616._
These is nothing more essentially English than the passion for adventure
and exploration, for seeing and colonising the world. It is a strange
passion: it leads men to leave the fair and comfortable villages, the
meadow-lands and sheltering woods to which they were born, for desolation
and strange seas, to exchange the temperate airs of England for the
rigours of Arctic nights and the burning of tropic mornings, to give up
security and good living for starvation and hardship, for death by thirst
or famine, or the cruelties of ‘salvages.’ Yet to this call of the blood
few Englishmen turn an utterly deaf ear—for century after century, and
generation after generation, they have followed the call and strewed
their bones about the world, while those who came home again simply
inflamed others to follow their adventuring footsteps.
We look upon the Elizabethan age as our perfect flowering time in poetry
and drama and the courtly arts. We know, moreover, how in that reign our
seamen first fully realised themselves, and one of the greatest among
them accomplished his fruitful circumnavigation of the globe. It is
singularly fitting, therefore, that such a time should have produced the
man who realised the epic quality of the voyagings and travels done in
his day and in times past, and who dedicated his life to setting down
some worthy record of those things. That man was Richard Hakluyt—or
Hacklewit, as his name was commonly pronounced and often spelt by his
contemporaries, and that spelling gives it a native English look more
in keeping with his nature than the accepted form. Three hundred years
ago, in November 1616, the same year as Shakespeare, he died, bequeathing
to posterity the work of his life in that noble book called by him ‘The
Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English
Nation, made by Sea or Overland to the Remote and furthest Distant
Quarters of the Earth at any time within the Compasse of these 1600
Yeares.’
Such a work grew from no common inspiration; it was not compiled, as
many later ‘monumental’ works have been, from other men’s researches:
it was part of the very fabric of his life. He spent laborious days and
nights, he gave long patient years to his self-imposed task, he studied
and he travelled, he talked with living men and inquired of the works of
dead ones; all knowledge was his province, so that it bore on his great
subject. It is doubtful if the annals of literature can show a more
passionate and more persistent devotion. As Hakluyt himself said to ‘The
Reader’ in the second edition of his ‘Voyages’:
‘For the bringing of which into this homely and rough-hewen
shape, which here thou seest; what restlesse nights, what
painefull dayes, what heat, what cold I have endured; how many
long and chargeable journeys I have travelled; how many famous
libraries I have searched into; what varieties of ancient and
moderne writers I have perused; what a number of old records,
patents, privileges, letters, etc., I have redeemed from
obscuritie and perishing; into how manifold acquaintance I
have entered; what expenses I have not spared; and yet what
opportunities of private gaine, preferment, and ease I have
neglected; albeit thyselfe canst hardly imagine, yet I by daily
experience do finde and feele; and some of my entier friends
can sufficiently testifie. Howbeit (as I told thee at the
first) the honour and benefits of this Common weale wherein I
live and breathe hath made all difficulties seeme easie, all
paines and industrie pleasant, and all expenses of light value
and moment unto me.’
The records of his life are scanty: that autobiographical passage, and
one other, are almost all he tells us about himself. He was content
with personal obscurity so long as his work was accomplished. It is
significant that, although buried in Westminster Abbey, the place of
his grave is not known, nor is any portrait of him believed to be in
existence. He called himself simply Richard Hakluyt, Preacher, and though
he meant that in the clerical sense which was his profession, we may give
it another meaning as well, for he was Preacher of Empire to England, and
of the splendid words of _Ecclesiasticus_, ‘Let us now praise famous men,
and our fathers that begat us.’
His life story is singularly complete and quite undeviating in aim. The
great object for which he was to work was revealed to him early, and
cannot be better told than in the grave simplicity of his own words, in
his ‘Epistle Dedicatorie’ to Sir Francis Walsingham:
‘I do remember that being a youth, and one of Her Majestie’s
scholars at Westminster that fruitfull nurserie, it was my
happe to visit the chamber of Mr. Richard Hakluyt my cosin, a
Gentleman of the Middle Temple, well knowen unto you, at a
time when I found lying open upon his boord certeine bookes of
Cosmographie, with an universall Mappe: he seeing me somewhat
curious in the view thereof, began to instruct my ignorance,
by shewing me the division of the Earth into three parts after
the olde account, and then according to the latter, and better
distribution, into more: he pointed with his wand to all the
knowen Seas, Gulfs, Bayes, Straights, Capes, Rivers, Empires,
Kingdomes, Dukedomes, and Territories of each part, with
declaration also of their speciall commodities, and particular
wants, which by the benefit of traffike, and entercourse of
merchants, are plentifully supplied. From the Mappe he brought
me to the Bible, and turning to the 107 Psalme, directed me to
the 23 and 24 verses, where I read, that they which go downe
to the sea in ships, and occupy by the great waters, they see
the works of the Lord, and his woonders in the deepe, etc.
which words of the Prophet together with my cousins discourse
(things of high and rare delight to my young nature) tooke in
me so deepe an impression, that I constantly resolved, if ever
I were preferred to the University, where better time, and
more convenient place might be ministered for these studies, I
would by God’s assistance prosecute that knowledge and kinde of
literature, the doores whereof (after a sort) were so happily
opened before me.’
It was a true vocation the young Hakluyt had found, and he faithfully
followed it all the days of his life. He took his degree as Master of
Arts at Oxford in 1577, having learned five languages for the sake of
his maritime inquiries; and then lectured ‘in the common schools,’
demonstrating the advances of geography—in his own attractive words,
he ‘had waded on still farther and farther in the sweet studie of the
historie of Cosmographie.’ His first book appeared in 1582, dedicated to
Sir Philip Sidney, and called ‘Divers voyages touching the discoverie of
America and the Ilands adjacent unto the same, made first of all by our
Englishmen.’
Hakluyt was convinced, as he set forth in his book, that for the future
development of exploration and ‘plantation’ (as colonisation was called
in those days) by the English, our principal necessity was a good system
of education in nautical affairs. This need he continued to urge upon men
of influence throughout his life; to Lord Howard of Effingham, the year
after the Armada, he wrote (‘as being the father and principall favourer
of the English Navigation’), pointing out—
‘the meanes of breeding up of skilfull sea-men and mariners
in this Realme. Sithence your Lordship is not ignorant,’ he
continued, ‘that ships are to little purpose without skilfull
sea-men; and since sea-men are not bred up to perfection of
skill in much less time (as it is said) than in the time of two
prentiships; and since no kinde of men of any profession in
the common wealth passe their yeres in so great and continuall
hazard of life; and since of so many, so few grow to gray
heires: how needfull it is, that by way of Lectures and such
like instructions, these ought to have a better education,
than hitherto they have had: all wise men may easily judge.
When I call to minde, how many noble ships have bene lost, how
many worthy persons have bene drenched in the sea, and how
greatly this Realme hath bene impoverished by losse of great
Ordinance and other rich Commodities through the ignorance of
Our Sea-men, I have greatly wished there were a Lecture of
Navigation read in this Citie, for the banishing of our former
grosse ignorance in Marine Causes, and for the increase and
generall multiplying of the sea-knowledge in this age, wherein
God has raised so generall a desire in the youth of this Realme
to discover all parts of the face of the earth, to this Realme
in former ages not knowen.’
To the advancing of navigation, which he justly called ‘the very walls
of this our Island,’ he was most anxious that a lectureship should be
established ‘in London or about Ratcliffe.’ Sir Francis Drake shared
this wish, and offered twenty pounds a year towards its support, but as
another twenty was needed and no one offered it, Hakluyt’s dream of the
training of the complete navigator came to naught. Perhaps it was not
so much needed as he thought in his anxious care, for during the whole
of Elizabeth’s reign only one dockyard-built ship, the small _Lion’s
Whelp_, was lost by stress of weather or grounding, while English ships
weathered gales in which whole Spanish fleets foundered at sea. But
Hakluyt’s desire was fundamentally a sound one, for in those early days
when science was in its infancy, and tradition and rule-of-thumb the
only guide, his mind reached forward to the value of technical training.
Another matter in which he was in advance of his time was his concern
in the ‘curing of hot diseases,’ wherein he had a far-off vision of our
modern schools of Tropical Medicine. Hakluyt’s ‘industry,’ which indeed
was on a colossal scale, was much commended by his contemporaries, but
while doing full homage to that unflagging zeal, we perceive other
qualities which engage our affection as industry alone could not do. No
one can read his beautiful dedications and prefaces without being touched
by his ardour, the freshness of his enthusiasm for all that pertains
to the sea-greatness of England, which he both recorded and foresaw.
The splendid fervour of Elizabethan poetry is in them. He gives to his
great book all the riches of his mind, and regards the achievements it
chronicles with a most passionate pride. He tells the reader that ‘it
remaineth that thou take the profits and pleasure of the worke: which
I wish to bee as great to thee, as my paines and labour have bene in
bringing these raw fruits unto this ripeness, and in reducing these loose
papers into this order.’ To him ‘Geographie and Chronologie’ are ‘the
Sunne and the Moone, the right eye and the left of all history,’ and all
history is but the ‘prologue to the omen coming on’ of English greatness
at sea. He sees the unknown regions of the globe as the scene, past and
to come, of that great drama of exploration where our seamen by their
‘high heart and manly resolution’ were to win new lands for England by
‘their high courage and singular activity.’ In seas uncharted, in a world
imperfectly known and full of fantastic terrors, he yet believed that
‘Where the dishevelled ghastly sea-nymph sings,
Our well-rigged ships shall stretch their swelling wings,’
and he desired, as might be expected from his thoroughness, not only to
write of those things, but to experience them. He planned to accompany
Drake’s West Indies voyage of 1585, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s fatal
one in 1583, but happily some unknown cause prevented his embarking
with Gilbert. England could ill have spared him with his great task
unaccomplished.
In 1589, the year after the defeat of the Armada, the fruit of his
labours appeared in the first edition in one folio volume of ‘The
Principal Navigations.’ After another ten years of labour the second and
final edition in three folio volumes was published in 1598-1600. When
that work appeared he might justly have said with Drake, ‘I am the man I
have promised to be.’ He had accomplished the toil he had set himself,
and doing so produced a work which is nearer being the epic of the
English people than any other book we have. Every activity of his busy
life was made to serve that central purpose. He went abroad, he lived
for five years in France as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth’s Ambassador; he
gained ecclesiastical preferment, becoming prebendary of Bristol, rector
of Wetheringsett in Suffolk, archdeacon of Westminster, and Chaplain of
the Savoy. He married, he had a son—but all these things are shadowy
to us: Hakluyt is the chronicler of the ‘Voyages,’ the mouthpiece of
Elizabethan England at sea, and as such he would wish that we remembered
him. Drayton showed the responsiveness of his contemporaries when he sang:
‘Thy voyages attend
Industrious Hackluit,
Whose reading shall inflame
Men to seek fame
And much commend
To after times thy wit.’
We do not feel that Hakluyt cared greatly about commending to after times
his wit, but that his book should inflame ‘men to seek fame’ was its
very object and purpose. He lived in the age of exploration and great
attempts; Englishmen were just fully awakening to their heritage, and
determined no longer to be forestalled by the Spaniards and Portuguese in
the adventure of the globe. The regions left them to explore were more
dangerous and difficult than what Hakluyt calls ‘the mild, lightsome,
temperate, and warm Atlantic Ocean, over which the Spaniards and
Portugals have made so many pleasant, prosperous and golden voyages.’
But from the rigours of harsh latitudes they won their fame and their
hardihood. We love Hakluyt’s gorgeous Elizabethan pride when he speaks
favourably of the Northern voyages of the Dutch, but ‘with this proviso;
that our English nation led them the dance, brake the yce before them,
and gave them good leave to light their candle at our torch.’
What a father he was to his seamen, how he rejoiced in their triumphs,
sympathised in their affections, and understood their ‘sea-sorrows’!
Many and bitter are those sorrows, as recorded in his ‘Voyages,’ and the
men of that day, many of whom had known the savageries of Spain, and all
of whom had lived through the coming of the ‘Invincible Armada,’ would
thrill to the grand Biblical opening of that poignant narrative of John
Hartop, ‘Man being born of a Woman, living a short time is replenished
with many miseries, which some know by reading of histories, many by the
view of others’ calamities, and I by experience.’
‘I by experience’—that is the very voice of Hakluyt’s ‘Voyages,’ its
unique and authentic value, the quality which makes it no book but a
living document of the English people. In his labour to make it that
Hakluyt drew to himself all he needed, from the humble and from the
great. He tells us how many ‘virtuous gentlemen’ helped him, and gives us
a galaxy of great Elizabethan names—Sir John Hawkins (who knew something
of ‘sea-sorrows,’ for when he returned from his West Indies voyage he
said to Walsingham, ‘If I should write of all our calamities I am sure a
volume as great as the Bible will scarce suffice’), Sir Walter Ralegh,
Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Walsingham, Lord Howard of Effingham,
the Lord Treasurer Burghley, Sir Robert Cecil, foreign cosmographers
and scholars like Mercator, Ortelius, and Thevet, were his friends and
correspondents. He valued them all, and not less did he value each humble
sailor he came across, such as Mr. Jennings and Mr. Smith, ‘the master
and master’s mate of the ship called the _Toby_, belonging to Bristol,’
or a nameless seaman, ‘One of mine acquaintance of Ratcliffe.’ He
travelled two hundred miles on horseback to speak with one Thomas Buts,
the sole survivor of a Labrador voyage. From the lips of all he learned,
and nothing was insignificant to him if it bore upon the sea or far
countries or the restless adventures and heroisms of the men of his race.
It is the story of the travels of individual men, he truly says, which
brings us to a full knowledge of the world, ‘not those weary volumes
bearing the titles of Universal Cosmography, which some men that I could
name have published as their own.’ It came too late for inclusion in
his book; but how he would appreciate the saying of Sir Henry Middleton
when the Red Sea was ‘discovered’ (a hundred years after the Portuguese
discovered it), and the Turks claimed it as a close sea. ‘To come into
this sea,’ Middleton answered splendidly, ‘I needed no leave but God’s
and my King’s,’ and followed up his answer with cannon shot. Hakluyt,
like most passionate pioneers of Empire, lacked the humour that was
Shakespeare’s: ‘Master,’ says one of the fishermen in _Pericles_, ‘I
marvel how the fishes live in the sea,’ and was answered: ‘Why, as men do
a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.’ The gravity of a great
purpose is seldom seasoned with humour, and more to Hakluyt’s liking than
Shakespeare’s jest would have been the thought of Samuel Daniel:
‘And who, in time, knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? to what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
To enrich unknowing nations with our stores?’
He was filled with a spacious philanthropy to the unknown world,
and would bestow on it the benefits of our tongue and our laws. His
gentleness and wisdom did not fail him even on the thorny question of
the propagation of the Christian religion among the ‘salvages’ of the
Indies:
‘The means,’ he says, ‘to send such as shall labour effectually
in this business is, by planting one or two colonies of
our nation upon that firm [mainland] where they may remain
in safety and first learn the language of the people near
adjoining (the gift of tongues being now taken away) and by
little and little acquaint themselves with their manners, and
so with discretion and mildness distill into their purged minds
the sweet and lively liquor of the gospel.’
His sagacity and good judgment is shown by the way in which he dealt with
and arranged the enormous mass of material he accumulated. The wild and
fantastic methods of some Elizabethan historians were not to his mind: he
launched not out into a Universal History of the World on Ralegh’s plan,
and by his very restraint and the value of his material produced a book
which will live as long as the English language, while Ralegh’s ambitious
effort has gone to dust, which weighs light in the balance compared
with the jewelled lines of his lyric, ‘If all the world and love were
young.’ Hakluyt shirks none of the pedestrian necessities of his task:
he carefully records the name of the historian of each voyage, as well
as the name of the voyager, so that every man may ‘answer for himself,
justify his reports, and stand accountable for his own doings.’ Moreover,
he exercises a stern supervision over the superfluous—a necessity if
he was to get as many voyages and as much information as possible into
the compass of his volumes, for as Professor Walter Raleigh says in his
inspiring Introductory Essay to Maclehose’s edition of Hakluyt, ‘It was
the habit of his age to begin even a nautical diary with a few remarks on
the origin of the world, the history of man, and the opinions of Plato.’
Delightful though such remarks would now be to the student of Elizabethan
literature, Hakluyt had little use for them. He had a stern, a great,
and a practical intent in compiling his ‘Principal Navigations,’ and
a far better thing to him than literary graces would be the knowledge
that the profits of the East India Company were increased by £20,000
through the study of his book. He classified and arranged his voyages in
three series: first the voyages to the South and South-East; then the
North-Eastern voyages; and last the voyages to the West, ‘those rare,
delightfull and profitable histories,’ and ‘the beginnings and proceeding
of the two English Colonies planted in Virginia,’ of which Ralegh said,
‘I shall yet live to see it an English nation.’
Such, in rough outline, is that great work of his, which perhaps might
justly represent us to the world, with the Plays of Shakespeare, in the
two aspects of which we are most proud, our seamanship and our poetry,
were two books only to be taken from our literature. Shakespeare and
Hakluyt, who by a singular coincidence both died in the same year, make
together an epitome of the English people. In a large number of cases
they share the fate of classics, especially classics on the great scale,
and are ‘taken as read.’ But no matter: their thought and their passion,
different though they are in degree, have permeated the very marrow of
our minds, we absorb them unconsciously simply because we are English.
The most unlettered seaman is a ‘pilgrim’ of Hakluyt’s and an embodiment
of his hopes; the most casual or most glorious Englishman is a type
of Shakespeare’s, and to be found in that ‘universal gallery’ of his
plays. In Hakluyt we enjoy the English combination of the poetic and the
practical, and delight in his shrewdness and his pure enthusiasm.
He set out to prove, in a partially discovered world, that in the
splendid saying of an earlier Englishman, Robert Thorne, ‘There is no
land unhabitable, nor sea innavigable.’ That might be the motto of his
book; while as to him and all the seamen he fathered and gloried in we
may take the delightful words of Fuller and see them as ‘bound for no
other harbour but the Port of Honour, though touching at the Port of
Profit in passage thereunto.’
E. HALLAM MOORHOUSE.
_THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES: FIGHTING STRENGTH._
BY BOYD CABLE.
The fighting strength of the three batteries of a Brigade of Field
Artillery, at the time of the First Expeditionaries, totalled 18 guns,
18 officers, and about 650 non-commissioned officers and men. You might
remember those figures, or when you have finished the reading of this
tale just refer back to them.
The Brigade was posted before the action opened in a cornfield which
lay on the banks of a canal, and the guns were ‘concealed’ behind some
of the innocent-looking stooks of cut corn which were ranged in rows
along the field. It was the Brigade’s first action, and every officer
and man waited with expectant eagerness for the appearance of the enemy.
On the other side of the canal there was a wide stretch of open ground,
but to the gunners it appeared too good to be true that the enemy would
advance across that open and give the guns a chance of sweeping them off
the earth with shrapnel. At some points tongues and spurs of thick wood
ran out towards the canal, and it was rather through and under cover
of the trees that the artillerymen expected the enemy to try to press
in on the front which ran roughly along the line of the canal. Such an
advance would not give the guns so visible and open a target for so long
a time; but, on the other hand, there was still an open space between
the nearest parts of the woods and the canal bank, and if the attack
were confined to the approaches through the woods it meant that the guns
could concentrate on a much narrower front, and there was never a gunner
of them there but believed his own battery alone, much less the whole
Brigade, capable of smashing up any attempt to debouch from the woods and
of obliterating any force that tried it. Nevertheless, all their training
and teaching and manœuvres and field-days of peace times indicated the
woods as the likeliest points of attack, because it had been an accepted
rule laid down in peace—and there were plenty of men in the batteries who
remembered the same and very much sterner rule laid down in the South
African War—that infantry could not, across the open, attack entrenched
positions held by infantry and covered by artillery.
On the whole, the Brigade were very well satisfied with the look of
things, and having taken careful ranges to the different points of the
probable targets, with special attention to the wood edges, uncapped a
goodly number of fuzes, given a last look to the mechanism of guns and
gear, put some finishing touches to the cunning arrangement of corn
stooks, they lit pipes and cigarettes and settled down comfortably to
wait developments.
The developments came rapidly, but being at first more or less after
the expected routine as laid down in their teaching, the Brigade were
not unduly disturbed. The first fire of the enemy artillery was, as far
as the Brigade could see, not particularly well aimed, and although it
made a great deal of noise and smoke appeared to be doing little harm to
the infantry trenches, and none to the artillery behind them. Presently
the men watched with great interest, but little realisation of its
significance, a grey dove-winged shape that droned up out of the distance
across the line, swung round and began a careful patrol along its length.
But after that the shells commenced to find the infantry trenches with
great accuracy, and to pour a tremendous fire upon them. The Brigade
listened and watched frowningly at first, and with growing anger and
fidgetings, the screaming and crashing of the German shells, the black
and white clouds of smoke that sprang so quickly up and down the infantry
lines before them. They were at last given orders to fire, and although
at first they were firing at an invisible target, the gunners brisked
up and went about their business with great cheerfulness. All along the
line the other British batteries were opening with a most heartening
uproar that for the time filled the ear and gave the impression that our
guns were dominating the situation. That, unfortunately, did not last
long. The German rate and weight of fire increased rapidly, until it
reached the most awe-inspiring proportions, and it began to look as if
the British infantry were to be smothered by shell-fire, were to be blown
piecemeal out of their scanty trenches, without being given a chance to
hit back.
The Artillery Brigade whose particular fortunes we are following had,
up to now, escaped quite lightly with nothing more than a few slight
casualties from chance splinters of high-explosive shells that had burst
some distance from them.
But suddenly the gunners were aware of a strange and terrifying sound
rising above the thunder-claps of their own guns, the diminishing whinny
of their own departing shells, the long roll of gun-fire on their flanks,
the sharp tearing crashes of the enemy shell-bursts—a sound that grew
louder and louder, rose from the hissing rush of a fast-running river
to a fiercer, harsher note, a screaming vibrating roar that seemed to
fill the earth and air and sky, that drowned the senses and held the men
staring in amazement and anticipation of they knew not what. Then when
the wild whirlwind of sound had reached a pitch beyond which it seemed
impossible for it to rise, it broke in a terrific rolling c-r-r-r-ash
that set the solid earth rocking. One battery was hidden from the other
two by a writhing pall of thick black smoke, out of which whirled clods
of earth, stones, and a flying cloud of yellow straw. When the smoke
dissolved, and the dust and straw and chaff had settled, the other two
batteries could see a gun of the third overturned, the gunners rolling
or limping or lying still about it, an odd man here and there staggering
from the other guns—but all the rest of the gunners in their proper and
appointed places, the five remaining guns firing one by one in turn as
regularly as if on a peace practice. The Brigade had been introduced to
something quite new to it, and that it certainly never expected to meet
in open field of battle—a high-explosive shell from one of the heaviest
German pieces. But unexpected as it was, more terrible than the gunners
had ever imagined, there was no time now to think about such things. The
German infantry attack was advancing under cover of their artillery, a
crackling roll of rifle fire was breaking out from the infantry trenches,
sharp orders were shouting along the lines of guns. There was a pause
while fuses were set to new times, while fresh aim was taken and new
ranges adjusted.
‘Target, infantry advancin’—open sights...!’ said one of the gun-layers
in repetition of his orders. ‘But where’s the bloomin’ infantry to get my
open sights on?’
‘Where?’ shouted his Number One, and pointed over the layer’s shoulder as
he stood up to look over the gun shield for a wider view. ‘Can’t you see
’em there? ’Ave you gone blind?’
‘_That?_’ said the layer, staring hard. ‘Is that infantry?’ He had
been looking for the scattered dots of advancing men that were all
his experience had told him to see of an advancing line. He was quite
unprepared for the solid grey mass that he actually did see.
‘That’s infantry,’ snapped his sergeant. ‘Did you think it was
airyplanes? Get to it now.’
The layer got to it, and in a few seconds the whole of the Brigade was
pouring shells on the advancing mass as fast as the guns could be
served. The Battery commanders had a vague idea that the enemy infantry
had made some terrible mistake, had in error exposed themselves in
mass in the open. When the guns had brought swift retribution for
the mistake the mass would vanish; but meantime here was the guns’
opportunity—opportunity such as no gunner there had ever hoped to have.
But when the mass persisted and pushed on in the teeth of the fire that
every one knew must be murderous beyond words, the rate of gun-fire was
slowed down, and the batteries set themselves deliberately to wipe this
audacious infantry out of existence.
But then suddenly it began to look as if it were to be the Brigade that
would be wiped out. A number of German guns turned on it, battered it
with heavy high-explosive, lashed it with shrapnel, rent and tore and
disrupted it with a torrent of light and heavy shells, a scorching
whirlwind of fire, with blasts of leaping flame, with storms of splinters
and bullets. One after another guns of the Brigade were put out of
action, with guns destroyed or overthrown, with ammunition waggons blown
up, with gun detachments killed or wounded. Gun by gun the fighting
strength of the Brigade waned; but as each gun went the others increased
their rate of fire, strove to maintain the weight of shells that a
Brigade should throw. The guns that were destroying them were themselves
invisible. To the Brigade there was no movement of men, no tell-tale
groups, no betraying flash even, to show where their destroyers were in
action. It is true that the Brigade spent no time looking for them, would
not have spent a round on them if it had seen them. Its particular job
had been plainly indicated to it—to stop the advancing infantry—and it
had no time or shells to spare for anything else.
But grimly and stoically though they took their punishment, gamely and
desperately though they strove to fulfil their task, it was beyond them.
The grey mass was checked and even stopped at times, but it came on
again, and at the guns the ranges shortened and shortened, to a thousand
yards, to eight, seven, six hundred. After that it was a hopeless fight,
so far as this Brigade was concerned. Most of their guns were out of
action, their ammunition was nearly all expended, they were under a rifle
fire that scourged the guns with whips of steel and lead, that cut down
any man who moved from the shelter of his gun’s shield. Such guns as were
left, such men as could move, continued to fire as best they might at
ranges that kept getting still shorter and shorter. No teams could bring
up ammunition waggons, so the rounds were carried up by hand across the
bullet-swept field, until there were no more rounds to bring.
Since they were useless there, an attempt was made to bring the guns out
of action and back under cover. It failed when after a minute or two
half the remaining men had been cut down by bullets, and the commanders
saw that nothing could move and live in the open. Then the order was
passed to leave the guns and retire the men as best they could. That
was at high noon, and for the next two or three hours the gunners tried
in ones and twos to run the gauntlet of the fire and get back to cover.
Some tried to crawl or to lie prone and wriggle out on their bellies;
others stripped off bandoliers and haversacks and water-bottles, some
even their jackets and boots to ‘get set’ like runners in a hundred-yard
dash, crouching in the shelter of the gun shield, leaping out and away
in a desperate rush. But crawl or wriggle or run made little odds. Some
men went half the distance to safety, a few went three-quarters, one
or two to within bare places of cover; but none escaped, and most went
down before they were well clear of the gun. The few that from the first
refused sullenly to abandon their guns, that swore amongst themselves to
stick it out till dark if necessary and then drag the crippled guns away,
came off best in the end because they lay and crouched under the scanty
cover the guns gave, and watched the others go out to their deaths. They
lay there through the long dragging hours of the afternoon with the
bullets hissing and whistling over and past them, with the shells still
crumping and crashing down at intervals, with the gun shields and wheels
and steel waggon covers ringing and smacking to the impact of bullet and
splinter, with one man here and another there jerking convulsively to a
fresh wound—his first or his twenty-first as the case might be—groaning
or cursing through set teeth, writhing in pain, or lying silent and still
with all pain past.
Late in the afternoon there came a lull in the firing and a lessening
of the bullet storm, and the order—a very imperative order—was passed
for every man who could move to retire from the guns. So the few whole
men came away, helping the wounded out as best they could; and even then
they would not come empty-handed, and since they could not bring their
guns, and they knew it was a retirement from the position, they stayed
to collect the gun fittings, crawling about amongst the disabled pieces
and shattered carriages, with the bullets still hissing and snapping
about their ears, throwing dust spurts amongst their feet, whisking
and swishing through the scattered corn stooks. They brought away the
sights and breech mechanisms and sight- and field-clinometers, and every
other fitment they could carry and thought worth having (and in that
they were even wiser than they knew, for in those days such things as
dial-sights were precious beyond words, and once lost could scarcely
be replaced). And laden down under the weight and unhandiness of these
things—the breech fittings alone weigh some forty pounds, and make a
most unpleasantly awkward thing to carry—the handful of men left in each
battery doubled laboriously out across the field and into comparative
safety. At the cost of persistent attempts and some more men a gun was
also manhandled out.
The battery that had salvaged its gun brought it safely through the
Retreat which followed the action. The other batteries had to be content
to keep their pitifully scant ranks together and stagger wearily over the
long miles of the great Retreat lugging their cumbersome breech-blocks
and dial-sights and gun gear with them. They clung at least to these
as the outward and visible sign of being Gunners and the remains of
Batteries, and they marched and hung together, waiting eagerly and
hopefully for the day that would bring new guns to them and reserves to
‘make up the strength.’
An unknown General passed them one day where they were halted by the
roadside for what one of the gunners facetiously called ‘inspection of
gun-park an’ stores.’ And ‘just see all the batteries’ guns is in line
an’ properly dressed by the right,’ he added, with a glance at the one
gun left to them.
‘What—er—lot is this?’ asked the General of the officer who was
‘inspecting.’
‘The Umpty-Noughth Brigade, Field Artillery, sir,’ said the officer;
‘Umptieth, Oughtieth, and Iddyieth Batteries.’ (It may have sounded
pathetically ridiculous, but it was no more or less than the bare truth;
for it was as units and batteries that these remnants had marched and
hung close together, and, given new guns and fresh drafts, they would be
batteries and units again. After all, it is the spirit of and as a unit
that counts.)
The General looked at the drawn-up ranks of the batteries, the gun
detachments represented by two or three men, or by one man, or by
an empty gap in the line; he saw the men grey with dust, with torn
clothing, with handkerchiefs knotted at the corners replacing lost caps,
with puttees and rags wound round blistered feet—but with shoulders
set back, with heads held up and steady eyes looking unwinking to
their front. He looked, too, at the one gun, scarred and dented and
pitted and pocked with splinter marks and bullet holes, at each little
pile of breech-blocks and sights and fittings that lay spread out on
handkerchiefs and haversacks and rags in the place of the other guns; and
he noticed that dirty and dusty and dishevelled as the men might be, the
gun parts were speckless and dustless, clean and shining with oil.
The General spoke a few curt but very kindly words to the officer quite
loud enough for ‘the Brigade’ to hear, saying he remembered hearing some
word of their cutting up and the fine finish they had made to their
fight, congratulating them on the spirit that had held them together,
wishing them luck, and hoping they would have their new guns before the
time came to turn and hit back and begin the advance.
‘I hope so, sir,’ said the officer simply; ‘and thank you.’
The General saluted gravely and turned to go, but halted a moment to ask
a last question. ‘How many of you—how many of the Brigade came out of
that show?’ he said.
‘Only what you see here, sir—one gun, one officer, and fifty-three men,’
said the officer.
You may remember what was the full fighting strength of a Field Artillery
Brigade; but you must also remember that there is another sort of
‘fighting strength,’ greater far than mere numbers, the sort of strength
that this poor shattered remnant of a Brigade still held undiminished and
unabated—the stoutness of heart, the courage, the spirit that made the
old ‘Contemptible Little Army’ what it was.
PRESS BUREAU: PASSED FOR PUBLICATION.
_SQUIRES AND TRADE IN OLDEN TIMES._
When did the idea that trade was derogatory to men of good birth,
otherwise the Continental point of view based on a different social
structure, creep into England? No writer, so far as I know, has ever
attempted an explanation of what suggests a paradox. That it is an
alien importation and in conflict with the facts of English life up to
a certain period seems indisputable, and all evidence would point to
the Hanoverian succession as roughly marking this mysterious change
of attitude. Eliminating, and for obvious reasons, the greater and
more powerful Houses, the record of most old English families is a
contradiction in terms of the rigid but quite logical observance of a
Continental _noblesse_. There is about an even chance that sooner or
later you tap the root of the family and its fortunes in a woolstapler,
a goldsmith, a vintner, an iron-forger, a flockmaster, a haberdasher,
or a grocer, and last, but assuredly not least, in a successful lawyer.
What is more, we find these worthies seated upon their newly acquired
acres with a coat of arms, inherited or acquired, without any apparent
consciousness of being upstarts or parvenus. In the modern sense they
were probably not so regarded by their longer-seated country neighbours.
As the latter’s near relations, to say nothing of their collaterals, were
themselves largely engaged in trade of some sort or in various avocations
assuredly not more aristocratic, such an attitude would be inconceivable!
We all know the modern ideas about such things, and need not waste words
over them. Nor is it of any consequence how much they may have modified
in the last fifty years. For our point lies in the fact that they could
not well have existed at a period to which a popular superstition
attributes a rigid and long-lost exclusiveness. The ‘very respectable
family’ of Blankshire in Jane Austen’s time undoubtedly looked askance
at trade. Yet it seems probable that their own great-great-grandfathers
would not even have understood what such an attitude meant. It does
seem rather whimsical that the Continental point of view should have
established itself in theory, if not altogether in practice, in a country
whose landed gentry had not merely intermarried freely with commerce, but
in such innumerable instances were themselves the product of it. Nor is
this all. For in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries their progeny
and collaterals were of necessity much engaged in trade, and indeed not
seldom in occupations that in these presumably democratic days would be
rejected offhand by anyone with the least pretension to gentility. The
more decorative alternatives to a livelihood, as we should now regard
them, either did not exist much before the Georges and the rapid economic
developments of the eighteenth century, or were utterly inadequate to
the demands of the younger son, when, with smaller properties and larger
families, his name was legion.
Scotland and Wales do not come within the scope of these inquiries, for,
I trust, obvious reasons. Some Scottish writers, however, have dealt
rather frankly with these things and incidentally disclosed to their
countrymen the perhaps not always palatable fact that shopkeeping in
Edinburgh was once a recognised occupation for persons of family, while
as for that quite other Scotland, the Highlands, tavern-keeping (and what
taverns!) was quite usual among men of birth.[1] But the complexities
of English social life since the Feudal period are infinitely greater.
Probably not half the families seated upon the land to-day go back beyond
George III. Estimates of certain districts occasionally published give
something like this result. Of several counties I can of my own knowledge
arrive at something like an approximate conclusion, and it agrees with
these others. But counties and districts in this respect differ vastly.
The Home Counties, for instance, have virtually broken with their past.
They are full of aliens. Landed property of every kind is mainly in the
hands of a more or less new element from all parts of Britain and the
Empire, which derives most of its income from outside sources. Half a
dozen counties are in a social sense little more than glorified suburbs.
The landscape may remain in part rural, though thickly sprinkled with
exotic marks. Sport and agriculture may be active. Ingenuous novelists
and essayists in London or the suburbs may write of these regions as
representing normal English rural life and society. The visiting American
may imagine he is looking upon a typical English country-side. But all
this is, of course, an utter fallacy. The influence of London even in
old times covered a considerable radius. Fifty miles in nearly every
direction would be no overestimate of its range to-day.
But it has been given me during the last quarter of a century to make a
tolerably intimate acquaintance almost parish by parish with a good many
other English counties more typical for the purpose in hand, to trace
back the fortunes of families and estates, and, not least, to appraise
their domestic history as it is written on tomb and tablet in hundreds
of parish churches. Genealogies, county histories, family documents are
eloquent enough of the various careers followed by men of gentle birth
and of the enterprises which brought so many landed families into being
and continued to engage the energies of younger sons regardless of
lineage. Most of us have heard, from the lips, probably, of old ladies
of a past generation, that the Army and Navy, Church and Bar, were the
only callings for a gentleman. Anglo-Irish squireens, of Cromwellian
or Williamite origin, with the thickest of brogues, still very likely
give utterance to what half a century ago was accepted as a sort of good
old English tradition. It occurred to no one, apparently, that in old
England, say pre-Georgian England, there was no Army to speak of and no
Navy (as a career for a gentleman); that the Church meant anything or
nothing; while the Bar, aristocratic no doubt, was a little too much
so, or at least too expensive, for most younger sons of average country
squires. But it is on the chancel walls of parish churches that the Tudor
or Jacobean _novus homo_ proclaims most convincingly the current absence
of any commercial shamefacedness. To-day the merchant squire who starts
the family tomb with the family acres is almost always writ down thereon
as a territorial magnate pure and simple. All allusion to the shop is
suppressed.
The alderman squire of the seventeenth century, on the other hand, looks
down on us from beneath his inherited or acquired armorial bearings quite
unabashed in the character of a prosperous mercer or woolstapler. With
the ladies, too, who so frequently brought the profits of commerce to
improve the fortunes of a distinguished line, the parental haberdasher or
clothier who provided their dower is frankly recognised in their own or
their husband’s mortuary inscription. And this, I have little doubt, for
the simple reason that there was no incentive to the curious make-believe
that has since been fostered by a healthy but utterly confused social
system. Human nature assuredly has not changed. Quite possibly there
was friction on other accounts between the Londoner and his country
neighbours. But as the sons and uncles and cousins of the latter were
deep in trade, local or otherwise, the candour of the sculptured tomb in
the parish church seems merely natural.
The Londoner, too, may have been of that wealthy city connection who
lived gorgeously, and, as we know, not merely entertained the higher
nobility and men of wit and fashion, but were often welcomed guests at
the tables of the great. Such a man’s outlook on life and knowledge of
the world must have been in inverse ratio to that of most country squires
of that day. He probably spoke the Court English, the sound and quality
of which one would give much to hear, whereas the other’s speech is
shrouded in no such mystery, for it was unquestionably in most cases the
dialect of his county, more or less modified. But provincial towns as
well as London produced citizen squires. Some, no doubt, had an inherited
right to armorial bearings, having regard to the number of cadets of
landed families who went into trade. But if not they assumed arms, often
indeed while still burghers, and heraldic experts tell us that this
procedure was regarded as a perfectly legitimate one, so long as they did
not annex some already in use; nor was any suggestion of misplaced vanity
thereby involved.
That there were diverse kinds of country squires in those times goes
without saying. A lord, too, was then a lord indeed! We have ample
evidence that there are certain conspicuous but untitled families, both
of Tudor and Norman origin, of wider culture, a Court connection, and in
closer touch with the outside world. We may never know how these diverse
elements regarded one another. Probably there is not much to know. Rural
Society had not yet acquired a big S in the modern sense. The forms and
ritual which gave the ladies of a later day opportunities for snubbing
one another were not yet. They were all much occupied in domestic cares,
and furthermore there were no roads as we understand the word. When
they migrated to their town houses or lodgings in Exeter, Shrewsbury,
or Worcester for a short winter season, as was the custom of many, the
burgesses, as such, could hardly have been excluded from their company,
for so many of them were relations. It is curious to note, too, how
during Marlborough’s wars a professional army began to introduce a new
social element, though a very small one, into provincial centres. In
this connection _The Recruiting Officer_ is distinctly illuminating.
For Farquhar writes from his own experience as an officer quartered in
Shrewsbury, to whose inhabitants, or rather ‘To all friends round the
Wrekin,’ he dedicates the play.
For it was not merely the English democracy that so hated the notion
of a standing army, but the country squires were among its stoutest
opponents, since, as officers of the militia, it reduced them at once to
an inferior military position. The young officer of Queen Anne’s time
appears in the provinces as a gentleman from whom the superior airs and
graces of a man of the world, familiar even with Continental usages, are
to be looked for, and no doubt resented by the country bucks. Brawls on
this account with civilians were fairly frequent. The hospitable squire
himself seems to accept with equanimity a slightly patronising attitude
from his military guest. For the virtue of his daughters he lives in a
constant state of alarm while the terrible captains, lieutenants, and
ensigns, with their fine uniforms and insinuating worldly ways, are in
the neighbourhood. It must be admitted that the ladies themselves give
some cause for this anxiety.
But to return to our muttons. Several of the older families of Wiltshire
spring from the cloth manufacture which flourished so early in that
great wool-producing country. Others arose from like sources and died
out after a few generations of squiredom, leaving no memory but that
emblazoned upon the walls of their parish church, and maybe some gem of
a small Tudor or Jacobean manor-house now occupied by a big sheep-farmer
of more sumptuous life and habit than the builder. Wilts, Gloucester,
Worcester, Hereford, and Salop, in whole or part, I may say at once, are
more particularly in my mind in these pages, for the excellent reason
that I know them more intimately than any of those other portions of
England which could be taken as typical for the purpose in hand. But I
feel tolerably confident that what can be said of Worcester or Wilts
will apply to Yorkshire or Norfolk. The extremities of the country, on
the other hand, may be not inaptly illustrated by the ancient tag, or
one may fairly say ‘brag,’ of the always rather money-worshipping and
comfort-loving Englishman:
‘A squire of Wales, a Knight of Cales,
And a laird of the North Countree:
A yeoman of Kent, with his yearly rent,
Could buy them out all three.’
Here again is the whimsical lament of a Cromwellian sequestrator on the
Welsh border:
‘Radnorsheer, poor Radnorsheer!
Never a park and never a deer,
Never a squire of £500 a year
But Richard Fowler of Abbey cwm-hir.’
The figure here mentioned would represent a fairly well-endowed squire of
that period in a normal county.
To illustrate the intimate association of trade and land in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries by a stray example or two may seem beside
the mark. But here at any rate, culled almost at random from one of
my notebooks, is John Groves, the first of his name to be squire of
Mickleton in Gloucestershire. He was a Yorkshireman who had made money
by trade in London. He died in 1616 in his 103rd year, just after his
portrait had been taken, a work of art which makes him look extremely
wide awake! His son remained as a haberdasher in London and married a
squire’s daughter. Their son became squire of Mickleton as well as a
prominent Bencher of the Temple, and incidentally the father of nineteen
children, the eldest of whom married a grocer, obviously with the family
blessing; the second daughter, a judge’s son; while the eldest son
succeeded to Mickleton. The pedigree of the Sandys family, founded by
a North-country lad who became an archbishop, for long one of the most
prominent in Worcestershire and afterwards ennobled, reveals a grocer and
a haberdasher at the very zenith of its fame. Bishop Percy, of ballad
renown, was a recognised cadet of the great Northumbrian House. His
father was a grocer in Worcester, and the beautiful half-timbered house
he occupied in Bridgnorth still stands.
And what, again, of these swarms of younger sons and their careers? In
Elizabeth’s time the land produced less than a third of the grain per
acre that it does to-day, when, some urban critics of British agriculture
may be surprised to hear, our figures lead the world. There could have
been no princely portion for the younger sons from an estate of, say,
2000 acres. What did they do? There was no Army or Navy, nor often,
for the poor man, any Bar. The Church, for a clever youth, held great
opportunities, but in the seventeenth century could hardly have commended
itself as the snug and gentlemanly provision it became later. Nor am
I forgetting that many squires’ sons became a sort of upper servants
in the households of great nobles. But the custom died out, I think,
during the Tudor period. Nor again must the small expeditionary forces
from time to time dispatched by the Crown or led by adventurers to the
Continent be overlooked. But the supply of commissions must have been
limited, and in any case the job was but a temporary one. Unlike the
Scotch and Irish, each stimulated by quite different but equally cogent
reasons, the Englishman does not figure much as a soldier of fortune in
foreign armies, while of the Colonies a word or so later. But in the
meantime we may well ask ourselves, why this search after showy and
romantic careers for the younger son of olden days? He had plenty of
ordinary prosaic openings at home, and took them as a matter of course.
It is quite certain that his sisters and his cousins and his aunts did
not hold up their hands at the notion of trade, for half of them were
allied, or prospectively allied, to it. It was deemed a fortunate thing
if, through kinship or interest, an apprenticeship offered in the house
of a big tradesman in London. Not a few, indeed, of the famous London
apprentices we hear so much about were country gentlemen’s sons. More
found occupations in their own district, in such lines, for instance, as
the great Severn trade, with its boat-loads of caps and crockery, butter
and cheese, iron and Virginia tobacco, passing back and forth between
Bridgnorth, Bewdley, Worcester, Gloucester, and Bristol, and the squire
himself very often took a share in such ventures. Others became millers,
maltsters, tanners, glovers, or even shopkeepers in the country towns.
Some rented farms, which meant a very different existence for them and
their wives from that which would be entailed by a similar proceeding
in the same class of life to-day. Most of my own generation, I fancy,
grew up with a hazy notion that Cromwell was a plebeian because he was a
country brewer or the like. There are, perhaps, plenty of well-informed
adults even now who do not realise that he was not merely of a landed
family but of a wealthy and powerful one which had sumptuously
entertained King James at Hinchingbrooke, though originally sprung from
plain Glamorgan squires. For the son of a younger son, Cromwell, _alias_
Williams, seems to have been exceptionally well endowed. Attorneys
and surgeons too occur fairly often in family records, or as marrying
squires’ daughters, and parsons of course are well in evidence. Simple
arithmetic precludes the possibility of more than one eldest son in the
matrimonial market for each family of girls. Some of their marriages
would, I feel sure, surprise those who vaguely imagine that things in
this particular were not merely as now, or as yesterday if you like, but
‘more so.’
In the maritime counties, particularly the western ones, the sea no doubt
attracted many a younger son. The Newfoundland fisheries, long before our
North American Colonies were founded and for over a century afterwards,
were of enormous importance to Devonshire, for this was a Mediterranean
as well as a home trade. It is said that a third of the eligible manhood
of the county disappeared thence in April to return in November, while
squires with loose cash became part owners in ships, and their sons
frequently sailed in them. The constant wars in Ireland during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with their chances of loot and land,
must also have attracted a good many young gentlemen. But of the hundred
and odd English purchasers of estates in the six Plantation counties of
Ulster the outlay was too large for the ordinary younger son, so far as
one can judge from the list of planters, the particulars concerning them
and the prices paid, as given in the Government survey of the day.[2]
The American Colonies and the West Indies, particularly the former,
figure as the favourite dumping-ground of the seventeenth-century younger
son with the historian, when skimming briefly over these social trifles.
The Americans themselves too, with a natural and venial yearning for
decorative ancestors, work the younger-son tradition for all it is worth,
and paint him when they get him as a much more important person than he
really was. The New Englanders may be excepted, for they are a precise
people and have worked out their genealogies carefully to the original
Pilgrim father (using that term in a general sense) with more regard for
him as a sturdy pioneer than as a possible armiger. He was generally,
in fact, of respectable middle-class family. The theocratic atmosphere
of New England was not calculated to attract the offspring of squires
or the like. The southern colonies are, of course, their traditional
goal. Captain John Smith, virtual founder of Virginia, took out seventy
such with _gent_ marked against each of their ill-fated names on his
invaluable chronicle. They died to a man, poor fellows, and the only
gleam in their brief and melancholy story is when the indomitable captain
led out batches of them to fell trees and they swore so roundly at
their blistering hands that a bucket of water down the neck was decreed
for every oath, after which ‘all was merriment and good humour.’ The
next ‘Supply,’ including more of them, also died off. But a great many
younger sons undoubtedly went to Virginia when the colony settled down to
prosperity, and a great many of other sorts too. After the Civil Wars,
ex-Royalists of all ranks and grades flocked there, most of the more
important to return, naturally, at the Restoration. In conning the lists
of these early settlers and then taking stock of those who ultimately
came out on top as men of property and in a sense founders of families,
it is interesting to speculate from their names, difficult enough with
English ones, what various sources they came from. In the hard struggle
of early colonial life the common men had probably rather the best of
the younger son. An early governor of Virginia writes home with a touch
of irritation, ‘Everybody here wants to be a gentleman,’ and the colony
was assuredly run till the Revolutionary war in the interests of those
who either were so by birth or became so through prosperity. With a few
notable exceptions, most of the older and leading colonial families bear
names of undistinguished sound to an English ear.
English tastes do not run much to genealogy, at any rate in any
logical or accurate form. Hence no doubt the hardy superstitions and
make-believes that flourish among us. What exacts most respect and
consequently most desire is assured position, including the money to
maintain it. That of a squire _qua_ squire still receives ungrudging
recognition, allowing, of course, for political asperities. The rustic on
the estate may sniff a little at a brand-new one, but outside story-books
he does not care two straws whether he is the third or the tenth of his
line. The Southerners, and indeed Americans generally, have developed of
late an astounding passion for ancestry. There is more patter, and upon
the flimsiest grounds, about ‘blue blood,’ ‘high breeding,’ ‘patrician
bearing,’ ‘cavalier stock,’ and suchlike stuff, in some modern American
novels, good and bad, about modern American life, than in a whole year’s
output of fiction in Old England. But outside the State Historical
Societies a delightful _naïveté_ is the prevailing note; and this is not
strange, perhaps, with an extremely sentimental people, who, as regards
the Southern States, have, unlike the West Indies, been absolutely out of
touch with English social life and its subtleties since immigration there
virtually ceased, about 1700 A.D.[3]
With regard to our national indifference to exact genealogy and
the modern American craze for glittering forebears, I will hazard
the relation of an incident which struck me at the time as a most
entertaining and significant illustration of both. Now some dozen years
ago the ancient town of Shrewsbury celebrated the battle of 1403 by a
series of festivities. These included a banquet given to a hundred or
more notabilities of the town, and county and other guests, of whom the
writer was one. Another was a genial person who had come all the way
from South Carolina (or Georgia) in the character of a lineal descendant
of the great Norman, Roger de Montgomery, who eight hundred years
before had built Shrewsbury Castle. There are probably thousands of
lineal descendants of the mighty Roger, just as there are thousands of
legitimate descendants now living of even greater men than he, to wit the
Plantagenet and other kings of England.[4] But our ingenuous friend from
the States had not gone to work this way at all. His name merely happened
to be Montgomery, and to many South Carolinians that would be quite
enough, though it may well seem incredible to an Englishman, rather hazy
though he may possibly be about such things, that the twentieth-century
bearer of an ordinary place-name like Kent, Chester, or Durham should on
that account assume descent from the twelfth-century Norman who held one
or other of those counties as his fief![5]
Our American visitor, however, a quiet and modest person, was taken
at his own valuation, which I am positive was quite sincere. Perhaps
the company took it vaguely for granted that he had traced his descent
through orthodox sources. But I do not think this picturesque appeal
interested them enough to provoke criticism of any kind even in a county
where long pedigrees and old families are unusually numerous. Even the
association of the modern surname with the mediæval barony did not
seem to strike anyone or to arouse suspicion, probably because they
were Englishmen and cared (in detail) for none of these things, though
many descendants of other Marcher barons bearing famous local names
were present. The stranger, however, had come all the way from South
Carolina, as he piously, almost pathetically believed, to represent the
American branch of the early Norman rulers of Montgomery and builders of
Shrewsbury Castle. It was enough that he was a guest, and above all an
American, and presumably an entertaining orator. So of course he was put
on the toast list, where, unhappily, he belied his nationality. But the
humour of the situation seemed quite lost upon the company. A hundred
faces looked serious, and subsequently bored. But then they could not
know, as I had cause to know, the daring of an unsophisticated American
when on the war-path for an ancestor. A distinguished writer on mediæval
history sitting next to me was shaking with suppressed mirth, and
probably a clerical antiquary or two were enjoying themselves, but on the
whole I feel sure the joke was missed.
The multiplicity and individualism of English surnames form a strange
contrast to the tautology of Wales, the Scottish Highlands, and some
parts of Southern Scotland, where, with rare exceptions, a name alone
means nothing. Great numbers of English names carry of themselves
distinction, though the possession of them may sometimes be accidental;
or again, when among the early American colonists you find such names as
Baskerville, Fettiplace, or Champernowne, if you know your England at
all, you know for a certainty who they are and whence they came. But the
bulk of English surnames have no particular social significance one way
or the other, though many at once proclaim their county, particularly
in the lower ranks of life, which have shifted less. Upon the whole our
names are perhaps not very sonorous or inspiring. Some are hideously
ugly, while many seem of themselves to preclude the possibility of gentle
blood, though this is never a safe assumption. Constantly in remote
country churches one finds the place of honour among the dead occupied
for two or three centuries by a name that seems curiously ill-assorted
with broad acres and coat armour. Sometimes it may be a long extinct one
whose place knows it no more; or again, one of those still surviving
families that have flourished in respectable obscurity, but in local
regard, for centuries without ever catching the public ear, or perhaps
even the ear of the next county but one!
Now Prodgers was once upon a time the supreme conception of a comical
vulgarian with Mr. Punch. But the only Prodgers I ever heard of in real
life was that ancient family of Wernddu and Gwernvale in Monmouthshire,
now extinct or territorially so. Their traditional quarrel with their
cousins the Powells of Perther on the score of family precedence led to a
well-known humorous incident, which illustrates in entertaining fashion
the passion of Welshmen for these things as opposed to the comparative
apathy of their Saxon neighbours. The once contemned cockney pseudonym of
_Punch_ is of course a corrupted Welsh name (Ap-Rodger), and curiously
rare: one of the very few, in fact, that of itself would suggest gentle
blood. Rodgers were evidently scarce when the Welsh in the sixteenth
century found the inconvenience of pedigree nomenclature and adopted
the Christian name of their father (usually) as a permanent surname,
rejecting the picturesque suggestion, as it is said, of Henry VIII. that
the names of their estates or farms should be adopted; the consequence
being that both have to be used to-day in most Welsh counties, on every
occasion, from sheer necessity.
Trade could never have entered very seriously into the life of the
armiger in most Welsh counties before the eighteenth century, for the
sufficient reason that there was none. What the Welsh younger son did
must remain a mystery, for Welsh social life between the Reformation,
which darkened rather than illuminated the Principality, and the
Hanoverian period, is itself rather obscure. There is no reason to
suppose that the predilection for pedigrees which distinguishes the Welsh
would have included any prejudice against trade had the opportunity
arisen. But the genealogical instinct of the Cambrian is not altogether
due, I think, to pride of race. A venial vanity, no doubt, has a fair
share in it, but genealogy of itself has a strong detached interest for
Welshmen. You will find men among all classes with an entirely impersonal
interest in the ancestry of their neighbours. ‘I should like to show
you a little collection of pedigrees I have at home’ is an offer I have
had frequently made to me in Wales, and I can assure the reader that a
Welsh MS. pedigree is a tolerably formidable document. I myself knew well
a working man in Cardiganshire who spent his leisure hours in walking
about collecting such material purely for his own amusement. Imagine a
Wiltshire ploughman thus occupied!
Welsh social history is a thing apart. You do not expect to run up
against a mercer or a goldsmith in a Welsh family tree which soars away
through generations of virtual fixtures on the soil, and through a dim
and pastoral past, till it finds its inevitable source in one or other
of the five royal or fifteen noble tribes of Wales. And there you are!
Rather disconcerting, however, is the small scale on which the dignity
of a Welsh armiger must often have supported itself, not so very long
ago. In the small grey stone houses still surviving in fair numbers,
one seems to have arrived at a life so primitive as to require some
readjustment of social values; men farming their own land, and not too
much of it nor yet too fertile, beyond a doubt. I fear that, despite
the pedigree, our London haberdasher’s well-dowered daughter would have
turned up her nose at an average Welsh squire in Elizabeth’s golden
days. The Welsh were never great sea-goers, though a few, like Morgan,
rose to fame as buccaneers. The superfluous sons must have taken to
farming in some fashion, and though never much given to colonising there
was an agricultural movement into Pennsylvania early in the eighteenth
century. This probably included a good many of the Welsh gentry, for a
contemporary English traveller, describing the characteristics of the
various groups of settlers, alludes to the Welsh as ‘greatly devoted to
hunting and dogs.’[6]
Again, under the healthy, happy-go-lucky English social system, which
must always, as now, have bewildered the foreigner, the intrusion of
a genealogically unqualified female and her strain of blood into a
family is quite overlooked. Marriage with respectable and often no doubt
quite presentable women of neither birth nor fortune occurs constantly
in pedigrees, as one would expect. But when only a female remains to
continue the line and her husband takes her name this attitude is
conveniently reversed and the paternal blood ignored. When that wonderful
lady, Miss Kynnersley, of Loxley, in Staffordshire, married the most
excellent Baron de Bode, her family strongly objected for the good old
English reason that the baron was a foreigner. But when the bride arrived
in Germany the tables were turned, the baron’s relations withholding any
recognition of her till a satisfactory account of the lady’s pedigree was
furnished by the Heralds’ College. The Kynnersleys were fortunately of
the _élite_ of our gentry, and all was satisfactory. But when a further
demand for eight successive generations of armigers on the female side
was made, any country squire’s daughter in England may well have felt
some anxiety. However, the many who have read her delightful letters will
remember that this clever, capable, and pushful English baroness secured
the friendship and intimacy of much bigger people all over Europe than
the mother and sisters of a German baron, though she had this too. But
her brother the squire never forgave her.
A. G. BRADLEY.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Lawyers acquired land very freely in Scotland at all times. Whatever
may have been the methods by which some legal founders of families in
England acquired wealth, Scottish writers, including Sir Walter Scott,
give a dark picture of the lawyer laird. The comparative poverty of
land-owners, and land being the sole security for money in the country,
gave the sharp man of business peculiar opportunities. In addition to
this the cryptic phraseology of Scottish law, so inimitably set forth by
Sir Walter himself, helped to bewilder and confound the unfortunate laird
caught in its meshes.
[2] Pynnar’s _Survey of Ulster_, 1617.
[3] Ulster Presbyterians formed the chief influx after this period.
They went to the Back country and did not assimilate with the English
colonists.
[4] See Marquis de Ruvigny’s published Rolls.
[5] Montgomery was a subsidiary fief of the Norman Roger who was also
Earl of Shrewsbury.
[6] An American antiquary resides or used to reside in Wales, where,
having mastered the intricacies of Welsh genealogy, he made it his
business to elucidate their pedigrees for Pennsylvania Welsh families
upon orthodox principles.
_A HIGHLAND ANZAC._
BY LADY POORE.
Clean aims, rare faculties, strength and youth,
They have poured them freely forth
For the sake of the sun-steeped land they left
And the far green isle in the North.
_Australia’s Men_, by DOROTHEA MACKELLAR.
For the first time in the life of each of us Phœbe and I have been to
Scotland. It is excusable in Phœbe, who is so many years my junior and
only paid her first visit to the British Isles in 1904, but I am ashamed
to think I have been going to and fro upon the earth and the sea for
nearly half a century without once crossing the Border. And yet the
postponement of this excursion into the near unknown is not without
advantages. One has heard of people who had neither permission nor
opportunity to read the Bible till they were grown up, and to them it
came as a revelation of wonder and beauty. That is what the Highlands
have been to us whose minds have already been filled with impressions of
various shapes, colours, sizes, and consistencies till it is surprising
there should be one corner left, one spot of absorbent tissue upon
which the imprint of a new sensation may be received. The long journey,
undertaken at a moment when London was like a basement kitchen and even
Perth no better than a stuffy attic, ended in the aromatic ethereal
sweetness of a six-mile drive through heather, bog-myrtle, and bracken,
past twisted firs, red-barked and shaggy-headed, standing crookedly
against a blushing sunset sky.
We woke next morning with the waters of Lochalsh plashing and murmuring
not many yards from our beds. Ten huge seagulls screamed and squabbled
over their breakfast on a field of orange seaweed slashed with silver
pools and embossed with blue-black knobs of granite; and with them,
grudgingly tolerated as humble retainers, were three hoodie crows and a
yellow hen with nine chicks of mixed parentage. Beyond the pools lay a
stretch of darkling water shadowed by the black velvet hills of Skye—twin
hills that faced us with a narrow strait between them leading south.
It was hard to dress quickly with half one’s attention flying out of
the window, but the prospect of eating real porridge was alluring, and
after breakfast the exploration of a new world. We would not have changed
places with Columbus.
We were the only visitors at the comfortable grey-gabled hotel at Z⸺ and
absorbed and gladly held the friendly, if undemonstrative, attention
of the tiny village, a row of little houses set by the lochside on a
sheep-trimmed sward where bare-legged children with dark bright eyes kept
holiday from dawn to dusk in company with a couple of sheep dogs and a
pack of wise-faced, short-legged terriers. Thatched cottages from whose
moss-grown roofs grass and ferns sprouted, and low stone houses whose
walls were gay with scarlet fuchsias and blazing tropœlum crouched behind
fenced gardens in which the prose of potatoes and cabbages was enlivened
by the invasion of tall blood-red poppies with navy-blue hearts and
grey-green leaves.
We had been a week at Z⸺, a week of undiminished fervour as explorers
within a three-mile radius, favoured with warm sunshine and blessed
by the sight of mountains, sea, and sky varying almost from minute to
minute in colour, character and atmosphere, when the Highland Anzac
descended from a dog-cart at our very door. We had lazily breakfasted
in our rooms, and I was dressing at the moment but peeped behind the
blind in time to catch a glimpse of the broad-brimmed hat of the tall
soldier. Instantly I pinned my _Australia_ brooch (the shoulder and hat
badge of the Australian Imperial Force) into my tie and sent my maid to
tell Phœbe of her countryman’s approach. Before I was ready to leave my
room I heard her welcoming the new-comer. Had he been the last and least
of Australia’s soldiers he must have responded to the friendship in her
warm, deep tones; but he was of the true and the best type—the type now
familiar to English eyes, yet, somehow, exotic still. Nearly six feet
high is Donald Macleod, rose-bronze of skin, broad of shoulder and lean
of limb; square-browed and endowed with well-opened eyes of a blue, now
bright, now shadowed, like the waters of a mountain tarn, and fringed
with thick black lashes. When he laughs he squeezes up his eyes till the
dark fringes interlace, and his small teeth flash white between lips not
full but kindly and humorous. He is a corporal, and we believe him to be
twenty-four. Born in New South Wales and educated at the best of Sydney’s
schools—and they are very good—he travelled westward like the rising
sun to Perth (W.A.). A pearl-fisher of Broome by choice and occupation,
he basked for a few years in and on the sunny waters of a tropical
archipelago, and when the Empire wanted him he came, one of twenty-two
Macleods, expatriated patriots of his clan who, from the simple private
to the distinguished colonel, have left their all at the Antipodes to
follow the old flag. He was in the first division of the A.I.F. to see
service in Flanders, and there to the slight wound he had received at
Gallipoli he added five others, all in his left side, which chiefly
interest him as providing a reason for his joining the Australian Flying
Corps, a service in which he would not have to carry a pack.
The mettle and temperament of the Anzac fit him peculiarly for dashing
enterprises. He is wasted on slow and dogged nibbling and unsuited for
the tame but valuable task of following up the pioneer. His psychological
attitude and mental equipment, like his physique, are those of the
race-horse: he _may_ break his heart if he is badly ridden in a race, but
he will surely break it if he is put to ploughing.
‘I’m ashamed of this jacket,’ said Donald Macleod, surveying his shabby
sleeve with disfavour. ‘I bought it off a fellow the other day when I
hadn’t a rag to my back, but I’ll get a tailored jacket, not an “issued”
one, in London.’ ‘I hear the Anzacs’ measurements are an inch every way
more than the English soldiers,’ said Phœbe proudly. ‘That’s right,’
answered the boy. ‘And an inch or so less in every way in boots,’ said
I to myself. Corporal Macleod was wearing a pair of clumsy-looking
English-made boots, and I remembered the beautifully cut boots and
gaiters I had seen worn by a couple of newly arrived Australian Tommies
in London a month or two ago. It is a fact that Australian khaki and
leather equipment is vastly superior to that produced in England.
Australian sheep and cattle have afforded their very best, and Australian
factories have put their finest work into the Anzacs’ uniforms, so that
the most ordinary private has a look of unusual smartness as long as his
workaday rig holds together.
Our Anzac had been given ten days’ furlough as soon as ever he was fit to
leave the hospital where he had been for ten weeks, and had come north
to visit his unknown Highland ‘aunties’ a few miles from Z⸺. They were
kind and hospitable, but it wasn’t ‘life,’ and Donald Macleod is very
human, bubbling with vitality, eager for experiences. The lift he had
been offered to Z⸺ that morning gave him a chance to stretch a mind weary
with answering questions about his family in Western Australia on his
last morning in Scotland, and when his fellow-travellers, two elderly
members of a School Board Committee, had been deposited at our door, he
was free to browse around alone. But we did not let him browse alone. In
our own sitting-room we gave him ‘morning tea,’ an institution dear to
Australians and easily adopted by those who visit Australia, and then
we went and sat on a great purple rock, crested with white and orange
lichens and three parts surrounded by the falling tide, and talked about
the war. Corporal Macleod was as completely free from shyness as he was
from ‘swank,’ answering our questions frankly but minimising his own
share in the world’s earthquake. ‘They’re awfully good to us in England,
but the papers insist on making us all out heroes, whereas we’re really
only good soldiers,’ was the refrain of his reminiscences. ‘And it’s the
same in France, mind you. I talk French a bit (there’s all sorts to talk
to up at Broome), but the French beat me once they begin to chat. They
were ripping to us at Dijon; the French ladies couldn’t do enough for
us at the railway station with flowers and fruit and what not. One of
our chaps pondered a bit and then said to the leading lady: “Madame, le
rose de Dijon est le gloire de Dijon, mais _je_ dis les dames de Dijon
est le vrai gloire de Dijon.” She seemed to grasp what he meant and went
on talking nineteen to the dozen and smiled more than that. But some of
the peasants were completely “boxed” by the Australian badges. They kept
asking if we were _Autrichiens_. You see we were the first Australians to
get over. They know all about it now, and nothing is too good for us.’
It was near Armentières that our Anzac was wounded. A bursting shell made
five holes in him as he was lying on the ground. ‘I got the news of the
Battle of Jutland when they were dressing my wounds, and, my word! it
hurt more than the dressing. I said to myself, “This is _my_ bad day,
sure enough.” It beats me now how the papers made such a sad song about
that victory. The day before I was near being wiped out by a shell.
Only that something made me wait and talk to a parson—not a habit of
mine—it would have got me clean. He was a good chap too, and I don’t mind
owing him my life. You’d be surprised to see the way the French and the
Belgians carry on their business as if nothing was happening. There was
an old woman used to bring the newspapers into our trenches as regular as
clockwork, no matter how the Boche was strafing us.’
‘Aren’t you proud of being a Highlander?’ we asked, for our minds were so
full of the charm of the place and the history of its people that we felt
positively envious of the boy’s origin.
He smiled disarmingly and answered ‘I haven’t much of an eye for scenery:
I don’t seem to notice it much, anyway; and, to say the truth, I’m keen
on getting to a place in Hampshire called A⸺ where a big swell a friend
in Westralia gave me an introduction to lives. There’ll be more people
there, and I’ve not seen many so far outside the hospital at X⸺.’ ‘Were
they good to you there?’ I asked. ‘Good as gold, but uncommon strict, and
there were more flowers to smell than food to eat on the table at meals
some days. But they were kind, and no mistake. The ward-sister opened
all the windows of the ward I was in to let me hear the gramophone in
another wing spouting out “Australia will be there.” There were a lot of
enterics among the patients, poor chaps. Queer, isn’t it? how the ones
I’m most sorry for seem to get the least attention from visitors. Why, I
wouldn’t wear my wound stripe in hospital for fear they’d feel out of it,
but there were ladies, young and pretty and old and ugly, who’d come into
the ward and, if they saw a man with a couple of fingers missing or a
bandage round his head, it was “Oh, I _am_ so sorry you are wounded! Does
it hurt much? Would you care to come out for a motor-ride and have tea at
our house this afternoon?” ... The wounded chap would say “My wound’s all
right, thank you, I’m only wearing that bandage to please the doctor”;
but she’d go on pouring out sympathy and invitations till the poor devil
was forced to accept. Next bed, perhaps, there’d be an enteric, dead
sick of hospital and feeling like nothing on earth. “Where were _you_
wounded?” the lady would ask. “Not wounded, miss—enteric (or perhaps
dysentery)’s my trouble.” “Ooo-hh!” says the sympathiser with wounded
men only, and on she goes to the next bed. No drives or tea-parties for
the men that were lying there weeks and weeks, while we that were well
and fit, but for a bullet-hole or two or a scratch of a shell, would be
fairly smothered with attention. My word! it used to make me feel sick
and ashamed.’
Phœbe was in Cairo in March and had seen the shocked faces and up-raised
hands of those who unsparingly condemned the mad pranks of idle Anzacs
in that city, the most unsuitable headquarters for half-disciplined
troops imaginable. ‘Were you one of the men who decorated Ibrahim Pasha’s
equestrian statue by putting a nose-bag on his horse?’ she asked. ‘I
wasn’t in that,’ said Corporal Macleod, ‘but I helped to throw a piano
out of the window of one of the houses we wrecked in the quarter that
ruined so many of our men. I wish the fire that followed had burnt the
whole beastly place up.’ ‘So do I,’ Phœbe agreed. ‘Why, in the name of
common sense, they didn’t create a camp city on the banks of the canal
I shall never understand. It was a crazy thing to turn loose a pack of
new-made soldiers, cramped and restless after a six weeks’ voyage on
board crowded troopships, in a place like Cairo, that breeds more harpies
and sharpers to the square yard than perhaps any other city in the world,
unless it’s San Francisco.’
‘What about General Birdwood?’ I asked. ‘Have you ever spoken to him?’
The Anzac’s eyes disappeared behind their lashes and his teeth flashed in
a glad grin. ‘Once,’ he answered. ‘There’s hardly one of us who can’t say
he had the opportunity. He asked me when I thought the war’d be over, and
I had to smile. My word! he’s a fine chap.’
The gentlemen of the School Board Committee had done their work, and
when we saw the ‘machine’ drive round from the stables we left our rock
and returned to the hotel. The minister climbed stiffly into the front
seat, and our Anzac, after a warm handshake, saluted and took his place
beside the white-haired grocer at the back. Phœbe and I gazed and waved
from the door till the merry face with its strong oval framed in the
curve of a brown chin-strap receded in a blur of white dust from the long
straight road. ‘I wish he had seemed the least little bit impressed by
the Highlands,’ I said regretfully.
‘You needn’t worry,’ answered Phœbe. ‘When he gets back to West Australia
and has time to sort out his memories and talk things over with his
people he’ll be just as proud of being a Highlander as he is of being an
Anzac.’
_THE BRINK OF ACHERON._
Far down the glen, on the crest of a conspicuous spur—a bright spot of
colour. Major Duckworth of King George III.’s Own Fusiliers dived his
hand into the mighty pocket of his overcoat, drew out his glass, and
focussed it on the object. It was a scarlet coat—the King’s uniform.
Four hours had passed since then, and at length Duckworth was forced to
recognise that not alone would he have only his pains for his labour,
but that he was hopelessly lost amongst the intricacies of the Sierra
de Avila. The valley that had seemed so full of feature at first, was
for him featureless. Each subsidiary glen seemed exactly like the other;
every spur looked the twin of the next. To add to the difficulties of the
situation the mists had come down to within a hundred feet of the bottoms.
Moreover, he had disobeyed orders; and he realised that when he
returned—_if_ he returned—to camp, his reception by Sir Edward Pakenham,
however reasonable his excuses, would be the reverse of sympathetic.
He had excuses, or rather explanations, which had appeared quite
satisfactory an hour or so ago. It was true that a general order had
been issued that scouts were not to venture far out of touch with the
outposts; but in the circumstances, the order had seemed inapplicable—a
few hours ago.
The reason for the order was that recently no fewer than four officers
employed on reconnaissance duty among the hills had failed to return
to headquarters at Fuente Aguenaldo. The French knew nothing of them,
and the French were honourable adversaries. On the other hand, the
inhabitants of the Sierra were Spanish irregulars—our allies, guerrillas
who varied the intervals between action and retreat by remunerative
military exploits, flavoured under favourable conditions by torture.
It was not inconceivable that these gentlemen might have failed to
differentiate between the French and English nationalities in the case of
the absentees.
Explanation I.—Duckworth had seen the King’s uniform on a stray
figure—presumably that of one of the missing officers. It was therefore
his duty to ride in search of him.
Explanation II.—The hills in that neighbourhood were innocent of
guerrilla—for a season, at least. Early in the day, Duckworth had
watched a force of French rounding up a large body of his irregular
allies at the point of the bayonet, in a businesslike manner that evoked
his enthusiastic admiration.
Result!—Disobedience to orders and nothing whatever to show for it.
If his thoughts were gloomy, his surroundings were depressing. Every
stream, every runnel, every trickle, was frothing with dirty grey
soapsud-coloured water; the clean white limestone cliffs had taken a
dull, grey, lifeless, unwashed hue; the dripping dank leaves seemed to be
doing their best to turn grey, and over all the mist stretched its grey,
unwholesome canopy.
For some time he had followed the river, the general direction of which
would, he knew, take him towards the British lines; but all at once the
water, after the exasperating habit of mountain streams in limestone
countries, slipped underground, leaving a trackless chaos of stones and
boulders. Disgustedly the Major turned his charger’s head, trusting to
luck to find a way out somehow to somewhere.
Now and again he would halt and give a hail in the hope of attracting the
attention of the wandering brother officer he was seeking.
Unexpectedly his hail was answered—almost at his elbow. The intonation
was not English, and Duckworth swung round, pistol in hand, to find
himself face to face with a Spanish priest.
The stranger’s bearing was refined, his manner courteous, his voice
cultured, his features handsome and prepossessing. Nevertheless,
Duckworth decided out of hand that the man was a scoundrel, and that he
was in that strange place at that strange hour for some sinister purpose.
Not even when, after a few words of salutation, the priest offered his
poor hospitality for the night and his services as guide in the morning,
did he modify his opinion. He hated Spanish priests.
‘’Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil’; and when a
grown man is offered the choice between a desperately certain deep sea
of night, on storm-swept, brigand-haunted hills, and shelter with a
prejudicate devil, the alternative is not difficult of decision. With
fair words on his lips and mistrust in his heart, Duckworth permitted
himself to be guided by the priest.
The way led sharply upwards; then once and again twisted smartly between
colonnades of fantastic spikes of limestone, and so on, through a path,
or rather alley, over-roofed with interlacing boughs of tangled trees.
Emerging from the wood, they found themselves in a towering amphitheatre
of rock, sheer or overhanging, broken by little terraces of vivid green,
and with here and there a yew or birch or mountain ash growing out of the
crevices. It recalled to the Major a place he had once seen in his own
country—a mighty rift in the scarp of the great Craven Fault, Gordale
Scar. For a moment he stood gazing upwards, overawed by the grandeur and
the gloomy majesty of it.
‘We are here!’
It was the priest who spoke, and at the sound of the voice Duckworth
started, then laughed foolishly. Here! This was anchorite hospitality
indeed. He looked round through the increasing darkness in the hope of
finding so much as a cave.
The priest laughed also, and pointed ahead to where a low barrier of
limestone stretched across the gorge.
At first sight it appeared part of the parent cliff, but closer
inspection showed it to be strangely regular in outline. It was in fact
the wall of a considerable building, and a second glance sufficed to
recognise it as such, although an attempt had been made to emphasise
its resemblance to its surroundings by piling broken rock along the top
of the wall and leaving the edges ragged. Again the priest laughed,
and, taking Duckworth by the arm, led him onwards, and so through an
opening—which even scrutiny might have mistaken for the entrance to a
cave—to the interior.
There was shelter here—solid shelter; but the Major could not throw off
the feeling that he would prefer to be out in the storm on the mountains.
The place was uncomfortably like a prison—a low, square, featureless
edifice, enclosed within a quadrangle of massive wall through which he
had just passed.
He had no opportunity for immediate reflection, however, for the priest,
who had hitherto been somewhat taciturn, began to talk with great
volubility. It seemed to Duckworth that he was endeavouring to attract
his interest, or rather to distract it. Still, there was neither sight
nor sound to justify suspicion, so he suffered himself to be led to
a shed, built within the court between the containing walls and the
building, which he was gratified to find was a stable. Here the priest
took his leave for a few minutes, with apologies that he had no servant
and a light observation on the fondness of the English for their horses.
‘The foolish fondness for his horse,’ characteristic of the English
according to Mauvillon, did not deter Duckworth from thinking, and
thinking hard. The place did not look like a monastery, though there was
no reason to suppose it was not. For the matter of that, the man did not
look like a priest.
Ere long, Duckworth began to realise that he was physically as well as
mentally uncomfortable. Before he had finished grooming his steed, the
perspiration was running off him. The atmosphere was something like that
of a vapour bath. Up till then, he had been unpleasantly chilly and only
too glad of the warmth of his great-coat. Neither was it the temperature
only that was oppressive. The place was unnaturally still. Without,
had been clangour and anger of elements; within the gorge, was quiet.
The tumult of the wind passed high overhead and was shut off by the
overhanging cliffs. The only obtrusive sound was a dull, unusual murmur
that seemed, to the Major’s imagination, to come from far below him.
He was wondering what it might mean, when a step on the flags of the
court arrested his attention. A man was coming towards him—a man who was
not a priest. In an instant his pistol was cocked and ready.
The man laughed.
‘Surely, sir,’ he said, ‘yours is a somewhat discourteous way of greeting
your host!’
Duckworth stared. The voice and features were those of the priest, but
the costume was that of a Spanish gentleman, and Duckworth noted that the
hair was untonsured.
‘Come!’ continued the Spaniard, ‘if you have finished with your horse,
you will be glad of some refreshment. I can offer you but little. Still,
it will be more palatable than bread and water.’
He turned as he spoke, and led the way across the court. Duckworth noted
with a thrill that he limped slightly. There were ill tales in the camp
of a bandit with a limp.
They passed into the house, crossed a hall, and entered a small room,
roughly but comfortably furnished. On the hearth a newly lighted fire of
logs was crackling. The window was wide open.
The stranger courteously assisted Duckworth out of his great-coat, which
he threw over an arm-chair in front of the blaze. Then, indicating a
chair at a table on which food and wine were laid out, he seated himself
in his turn and poured out two goblets of wine.
‘I dare say, sir,’ he said, with twinkling eyes, ‘you are wondering—and
perhaps with not a little suspicion—what the meaning of all this is?’
Duckworth flushed, and made a deprecating movement with his hand. The
other laughed again.
‘To begin at the beginning,’ he resumed. ‘Why the disguise of a priest?
Because, sir, I value my skin. You English, I do not fear—except
on a retreat. The French, however, are most inconsiderate to all
Spaniards—even non-combatants—but they leave the clergy alone. Finally,
on these hills, there are countrymen of my own, who, I fear, prey on
all and sundry. Fortunately, they are superstitious or excessively
religious—call it which you will—and so⸺’ he ended with an expressive
gesture.
Duckworth had been studying the man carefully. He was of fine presence
and soldierly bearing.
‘Why not join the army?’ he asked.
‘Because, sir, your British methods of fighting do not appeal to me. I
fought at Albuera. Ah! I know hard things have been said of my nation,
but it is not given to all nations to stand still like a wall and be shot
down. Also, I was unhorsed, ridden over by the cavalry, speared whilst on
the ground by a Polish lancer, and lamed for life. In fact, sir, I have
had enough of war.’
Duckworth began rather to like the man. After all, it was not given to
every nation to breed regiments of Fusiliers and Die-Hards, and the
Spaniard had fought and taken punishment.
‘You have been very frank with me, señor,’ he said, ‘may I ask of your
courtesy one more question?’
‘Who am I, and what am I doing here?’ laughed the Spaniard.
Duckworth nodded.
‘It is easily answered—I am Don Luiz Aguinaldo, once a wealthy hidalgo,
now a poor fugitive. The accursed French have swept my estates like a
flight of locusts: my mines are unworked, my vineyards destroyed. My
cousin was a priest in this monastery: I had visited him here and knew of
it. When war broke out, the Fathers, to a man, left their sanctuary and
went out to serve the sick and the wounded. I made my way here, found
the place deserted, and here I have lived ever since.’
All Duckworth’s mistrust returned in a moment. ‘I don’t believe a word of
it,’ was his unspoken comment. What he said was:
‘I wonder you can stand it. It is the most enervating place I have ever
been in. I should die of exhaustion in a week.’
‘Yes,’ assented Aguinaldo, ‘that fire is not for comfort, but to dry your
coat. Your boots would be none the worse for a toasting either. Wait, I
will get a light.’
As he spoke, he kindled a taper at the fire and proceeded to light a
lamp. This he placed for a moment on a table in the window and then, as
if on second thoughts, set it down by Duckworth. All the time he kept up
an incessant flow of talk.
‘It is the hot springs,’ he explained. ‘This is, in fact, the real Fuente
Aguinaldo. The town—your headquarters—is a by-product, an offshoot. A
strange place it is, and a strange place this old monastery is, too.
It is a quadrangle within a quadrangle, and right in the centre of the
building is a great tank. I suppose it was a natural formation in the
first instance, and was carved into regular shape by the monks. The
waters are always warm, and at one time had a great reputation for
healing rheumatism and such complaints. Cripples used to come on crutches
and go away dancing, so say the monks. I have no doubt the holy men made
a good thing out of it. However, somehow or other, it lost credit, and I
believe I am about the only person who uses it now. I have a bathe every
morning. Not,’ he ended ruefully, ‘that it does my wounded leg any good.’
Duckworth was puzzled. He scented mischief. He was confident that the
Spaniard was deceiving him, yet he was, paradoxically, sure he was
speaking the truth. Nothing, however, was to be gained by conjecture,
so he affected an interest in his surroundings, talked of the waters at
Bath and all kinds of bagatelles. Eventually, almost inevitably, the
conversation came round to the war. Duckworth had missed Albuera, and was
delighted at the prospect of a first-hand account from an eyewitness.
Don Aguinaldo spoke like a soldier. He understood and appreciated the
cleverness of Soult’s manœuvres and was unsparing in his denunciation of
Blake. For Beresford his admiration knew no bounds. His desperate courage
and heroic strength dominated the Spaniard’s imagination. Duckworth
concluded that his host was unacquainted with the Marshal’s exploit of
carrying a runaway Spanish ensign, colours and all, to the front, and
deemed it courteous not to enlighten him.
The evening passed pleasantly without word or act that could be construed
into confirmation of Duckworth’s suspicions—save one. He chanced to
mention the encounter between the French and Spaniards he had witnessed
that morning, and he thought that his host for an instant changed
countenance. He could not be sure, for at that moment Aguinaldo chanced
to spill his glass of wine, and the annoyance his face exhibited might
have been attributable to the accident.
At an early hour they retired for the night. Duckworth was weary in head
and body. The day had been a trying one physically, the tepid atmosphere
of the gorge was most exhausting, and finally he could not shake off
the impression that his host was a villain who would cut his throat if
opportunity offered. Suddenly suspicion became conviction.
Aguinaldo was conducting him down a long corridor of the monastery to
his bedroom, when Duckworth recognised an odour that was not incense. It
was quite unmistakably a mixture of rank tobacco and garlic. Now, his
host’s cigars he had found singularly good, and the hidalgo did not reek
of garlic. Moreover, the smell was too strong to be the ‘drag’ of one
individual, however high. A less intelligent man than the Major would
have recognised that the chances were that he was in a brigands’ nest.
Duckworth felt his appreciation of the French he had seen that morning
increase immensely. But for them, he might by that time have died rather
painfully. As it was, he was confident from the admirable manner in which
they had attended to the business in hand, there was nothing to fear
from the Spanish gentlemen of the hills for some time to come. As for
Aguinaldo, he could, and would, wring his neck as soon as look at him,
for the Major was certainly no weaker a man than Marshal Beresford.
Nevertheless, he lay down with his pistols under his pillow and his drawn
sword by his side. The point of his scabbard he had jammed under the
door—a most effective wedge.
Tired as he was, he could not sleep. He could not even rest. That dull,
unusual murmur he had noticed in the courtyard, that never-ceasing,
monotonous, subterranean muttering, was unmistakable. It was closer,
clearer, and more insistent. It seemed to come now actually from beneath
his feet. He tossed impatiently from his couch and leaned out of the open
window.
The murmur was, if anything, less distinct, and there was nothing to
be seen but the unsightly gloom of the pallid limestone cliffs, barely
visible in a drip of sickly moonlight that filtered down through the dank
atmosphere. It was pleasanter to keep the eyes closed than to look on a
scene so sepulchral, and Duckworth was turning away when he noted that
the thin rays trembled below him into broken radiance.
It was water—the surface of the tank of which he had been told, the
innermost of the quadrangles—reflecting the moonbeams. The sinister
murmur was caused no doubt by the overflow or escape of the drainage. And
this was the bogey that had fretted him.
A broad, harsh, yellow glare flashed crudely across the water. Duckworth
instinctively stepped away from the window into the darkness of his room.
The precaution seemed unnecessary. The cause of the light appeared
innocent enough. Through a casement on the opposite side of the
quadrangle could be distinguished the form of Don Aguinaldo, silhouetted
against the light of a lamp he held in his hand. He appeared to be
hanging up some bright-coloured garment beside a row of others on the
wall of the chamber. Duckworth could not distinguish details as the glare
of the light was between him and them.
‘Inspecting his wardrobe!’ grunted he. ‘I dare say the fellow has as many
disguises as a mountebank, and⸺’
A low, hideous laugh poisoned the stillness, and bore on its evil wings
a hideous suggestion that made Duckworth’s scalp creep and his seated
heart knock at his ribs. Those bright garments on the wall—might they not
be—were they not British—the tunics of the missing officers? The light
of the lamp had disappeared, but enough came from the moon to enable him
to locate the casement, the third from the left-hand end. He resolved to
inspect it in the morning at all hazards, and if he found his suspicions
correct, Don Aguinaldo should indeed guide him back to the British camp,
but with a pistol at his ear and a gallows in prospect.
He was worn out in mind and body, and recognised that sleep he must. He
accordingly wheeled his couch parallel to, and immediately below the
window-sill, so that anyone attempting to steal in by that route must
inevitably tread on him, and dropped off in profound slumber.
He awoke feeling thoroughly out of sorts. He had lain down almost fully
dressed in case of emergencies, and the discomfort inseparable from
a night in one’s clothes was aggravated by the clammy warmth of the
atmosphere. His head was aching, his mouth was dry, and he was sticky all
over—skin, clothes, and hair. He felt detestably unclean, and began to
think longingly of the possibilities of a bathe in the tank.
As if in response to his thought, there came a hail from below his
window, and, looking out, he saw Aguinaldo, standing at the water’s edge,
clothed in a towel. The Spaniard’s face darkened as he noted Duckworth’s
attire. Nevertheless, he wished him a fair good morning and courteously
invited him to join him in a swim.
‘He can’t do me any mischief in that kit,’ thought Duckworth. ‘I wonder
if I am wronging the fellow!’
He sent back a cheery reply, and in a few moments had swung himself out
of the window and was by Aguinaldo’s side, similarly attired.
The tank was of considerable size—some forty feet in length by twenty
across. It had obviously been hewn into its present rectangular
formation, but no attempt had been made to polish the sides, which
remained covered with small excrescences and seamed with minute fissures.
Near one corner stood a crude apparatus—a sort of combination between
a ship’s wheel and a lock-sluice, by which, Aguinaldo explained, they
regulated the water which welled in through a crack in the centre and
escaped into the bowels of the earth through an opening in the corner of
the tank immediately below the wheel.
To Duckworth it seemed that the water was lower than it had been during
the night—it was quite four feet below the edge—an impression doubtless
due to the change of light. The fact was, however, vexatious. It had
been his intention during his swim, quite unobtrusively, to get out of
the water under the third casement from the left and take a glance at
the interior. As it was, he perceived there was only one exit from the
bath—by a rope ladder close to where he was standing. Whilst he was
revolving these things in his mind, the Spaniard’s voice broke in.
‘I am wondering,’ he said, ‘whether it would be possible for a man to
cover the entire length of the tank in one plunge. I have tried, and
failed. The breadth is as much as I can do.’
Duckworth measured the distance with his eye. It was a sporting
suggestion. He poised himself for a moment, and then launched his superb
frame out in a magnificent header, neither did he move muscle till his
fingers touched the limestone at the far side. When he had shaken the
water from his eyes and turned, he saw Aguinaldo had drawn up the ladder.
‘Fairly trapped, Major!’ sneered the Spaniard. ‘Bah! what a fool you are!
How you came to the lure of the uniform! It belonged to one Vavasour, of
the 14th Dragoons. My merry men brought him in, but those thrice-accursed
French have driven them away. That uniform hangs in yonder room as a
memorial of an insult to a Spanish hidalgo, and yours shall hang there
too.’
So the vision had not lied. Duckworth felt no fear, only a fierce
remorse. Had he but verified his suspicions—and the Spaniard could not
have prevented him—he would have brought the murderer to execution. As it
was:
‘Fairly trapped!’ came the taunting voice. ‘I had to work by myself, and
here you are, the strongest of them all, helpless to my hand! I am glad
you are strong—that you can swim long. I have much to say. Only please do
not attempt to climb out. I have a brace of pistols on that window-sill,
and am a good shot.’
He paused, hoping against hope for appeal for mercy, but Duckworth made
no reply. He was reckoning up his chances. His silence exasperated
Aguinaldo.
‘Curse you English!’ he shouted. ‘Ah! you are brave now, whilst you are
strong and warm, but wait—wait till you are weak and cold and death is at
hand. Then—then, you will weep for mercy like your comrades⸺’
‘Liar!’ interrupted Duckworth coolly.
‘For that word,’ returned Aguinaldo, stamping, ‘I would have the skin
scourged from your back if my men were here. As it is⸺’ He broke into
blasphemy and imprecations.
Duckworth, paddling easily, watched him, well content. However slight
his chances, they would be immeasurably increased if his enemy lost his
self-command. After a while the Spaniard resumed.
‘I did not tell you how I was unhorsed at Albuera. It was that great
bully, Beresford. He struck me from the saddle with his hand. He called
me—_me_—coward! And I swore, as I lay on the ground, I would have an
English officer’s life for every finger on his hand. Four have I taken.
You are the fifth, and you shall die, die, die!’
Duckworth continued silently swimming. There was just one chance for
him—a desperate chance. Everything depended on swiftness of execution.
Scarcely had he conceived the idea when his tormentor furnished an
opportunity.
‘Have you any idea what will happen to you?’ he cried. ‘See this wheel!
Below, in that corner, is the sluice-gate—a great slab of stone. One turn
of the wheel and the water will sweep you down, down, with irresistible
force, through the sluice, deep into the earth, where you shall lie with
your comrades. No one will ever know your fate. There, in those dreadful
caverns, you shall lie and rot. Ah, I wish I could see you! I wish I
could know whether death came swiftly or slowly!’
Again he broke into curses. At length Duckworth spoke.
‘I am interested in that sluice-gate,’ he said, with studied
carelessness. ‘I will have a look at it.’
As he spoke, he dived easily to the bottom—the water was barely eight
feet deep. Aguinaldo craned over to watch him. It was what Duckworth had
hoped.
Bracing his feet firmly against the bottom, he crouched a moment; then
with a spring and a tremendous down-stroke of the arms, he leaped
upwards, half his height out of the water, and in an instant was gripping
the edge of the tank with both hands.
Aguinaldo might have dislodged his hold. Instead, he dashed to the wheel
and spun it round. For a moment the downward drag of the rushing water on
Duckworth’s legs was sickening. Then the broad edge of the sluice-gate,
heaved upwards by the Spaniard’s mad energy, came against his feet. It
gave him just the required purchase for his toes. The Spanish devil had
saved his life.
With a spring, Duckworth was on the edge. The next moment, Aguinaldo was
swung from the ground and sent hurling through the air into the tank, and
so came the horror of it.
Duckworth had determined that he should die, but in good set fashion,
after trial. It was not to be. The escaping water seized the wretched
man in its merciless grip, and whirled him to his death. Duckworth
frantically tore at the wheel. He could not move it; it was locked by
some device. He flung himself on the edge, if by chance he might catch
the man’s hand. It was too late. There was a dreadful vision of staring
eyes and wildly gripping hands—and the tank was empty.
* * * * *
Very white and shaken was Duckworth as he rode into camp to report
himself, and Sir Edward Pakenham’s face was scarcely less white by the
time the tale was told.
‘Major Duckworth!’ he said, at length. ‘You have disobeyed orders, but
you have been dreadfully punished. On one condition will I overlook your
fault. You will take a hundred men of your regiment, and you will report
to me to-morrow morning that not one stone of that accursed place is left
on another.’
CLAUDE E. BENSON.
WHAT OUR SOLDIERS READ.
BY BEATRICE HARRADEN.
About eighteen months ago Miss Elizabeth Robins and myself entered on our
duties as Honorary Librarians to the Military Hospital, Endell Street,
the only Military Hospital in England officered entirely by women. The
doctor in charge is Dr. Flora Murray and the chief surgeon Dr. L. Garrett
Anderson. There is a staff of fourteen doctors, including a pathological
and an ophthalmic surgeon, a staff of thirty-six nursing sisters and
ninety orderlies—all women. There are eighteen large wards, accommodating
about 550 wounded.
We were asked to collect a number of suitable books and magazines, and by
personal intercourse with the soldiers, to encourage reading amongst the
men, and to do our best to help them through the long hours of illness
and inaction by offering them books which would amuse and interest them.
From the very onset it seemed an interesting project, but nothing like
so stimulating and gratifying as it has proved itself to be. And it has
struck me that a short record of our work may perhaps be acceptable to
the reading public, and also useful in indicating what can be done in
hospitals by the help of an organised Library Department.
We began by writing to our publisher friends, who, in generous response
to our requests, sent us splendid consignments of volumes of fiction,
travel, and biography and hundreds of magazines. Authors likewise rallied
willingly to our aid. We were presented by a lady with an enormous
bookcase, a dignified and imposing structure, which we planted in the
Recreation Room, and regarded as a proud outward and visible sign of our
official existence. Other bookcases followed and were soon filled, and we
were still engaged in the heavy task of sorting and rejecting literally
shoals of all sorts and conditions of books, when suddenly the hospital
was opened and the men arrived from the front. It was remarkable what
private people did send—and do still send. It was as if they had said to
themselves: ‘_Here is a grand opportunity of getting rid of all our old,
dirty, heavy book encumbrances._’ I never in my life remember being so
dirty, nor so indignant. However, in due time we emerged triumphantly
from this period of trial—a trial mitigated for us by the generosity and
understanding of other people who sent new books or money with which we
were to buy books of our own choice. And we instituted at a very early
date a system of sacks, in which we despatched all our good surplus
matter either to one of the war libraries to be sent to the troops abroad
or elsewhere, or to the Salvation Army, which was glad to collect old
books and papers to be used for pulp.
We determined to have no red tape, and to leave all the bookcases
unlocked at all times, so that the men who were able to move about could
come and pick out what they liked. And we arranged to go into the wards
and take books ourselves to the men who were confined to their beds. Our
view was that we should give them what _they_ wanted, not necessarily
what _we_ wanted for them. They were there for rest and recuperation,
and we felt that we had no right to impose on them in their enfeebled
condition books which would tax them unduly or depress their spirits.
We had to remember that many of them at best have very little power of
concentration, and of course still less in the suffering and shattered
condition in which they arrive home. So our point was to take note of
their different temperaments, and see what we could do for each separate
individual.
We soon learnt that we had to invest in a large number of detective
books, and any amount of Nat Gould’s sporting stories. In fact, a certain
type of man would read nothing except Nat Gould. However ill he was,
however suffering and broken, the name of Nat Gould would always bring a
smile to his face. Often and often I’ve heard the whispered words: ‘_A
Nat Gould—ready for when I’m better._’
We also had to get Garvice’s books, and also Oppenheim’s. But even at
the beginning of our venture, we were by no means limited in opportunity
to authors of any particular class. It was quite possible that one man
in a ward would be reading, say, Nat Gould’s ‘Jockey Jack’—a great
favourite—and the man in the next bed would be reading Shakespeare,
or ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ or Shelley, or Meredith, Conrad, or the
Encyclopædia. We found, in fact, so many different kinds of minds and
upbringings, that we could never have remembered without the aid of a
note-book what each man wanted.
So after various experiments, this became our system. We divided the
wards between us, and went round with our note-book to each bedside,
found out if our soldier cared to read, and, if he had no suggestion to
make, found out in a vague sort of way, without worrying him, of course,
what he would be _likely_ to want—if, indeed, he wanted anything at all.
For in some cases the very thought of a book was apparently worse than a
bomb. In instances like this, matches and cigarettes or tobacco served
as a substitute for literature, and generally speaking as a natural
concomitant too! Now and again we have had men who have never learnt to
read at all. With one exception, these have invariably been miners.
One day our work took on a new phase, the development of which has been
the source of great satisfaction, both to readers and librarians. We were
asked for a book on high explosives. We made inquiries about the one in
question, and found it cost eighteen shillings. That seemed a good deal
to spend on one book for one person, but on mentioning this matter to our
doctor in charge, we were told to go ahead and buy it, and also anything
else that seemed to be wanted. This one incident fired us with the idea
to find out what subjects the men were interested in, what had been their
occupation before the war, or their plans for the future. And from that
moment the work of the librarians became tenfold more interesting, and in
some degree constructive.
We were asked for books on paper-making, printing, cabinet-making,
engineering, marine engineering, veterinary work, Sheffield plate, old
furniture, organic and inorganic chemistry, fish-curing, coal-mining,
counterpoint, languages, meteorology, electricity, submarines,
aeroplanes, flowers, trees, gardening, forestry, the Stone Age, painting
and drawing, violin making, architecture, and so on. The fish-curing
instance was particularly interesting. The soldier in question was from
Nova Scotia, and his father’s business was fish-curing. He was anxious to
learn the English methods, and gain all the information he could during
his sojourn in England, before he was invalided out of the army and
returned to his home.
We have therefore made it our business to supply these various needs,
and also to provide any weekly papers bearing on the different subjects
in which the men are interested. Our Department could not, of course,
be always buying costly books, but with the aid of our subscription to
Mudie’s, and by the help of friends who have come to the rescue and lent
their valuable books to us for the special purpose which we have unfolded
to them, we have been able so far to meet all demands; and this part of
our work is increasing all the time. The Sheffield plate book lent us by
a generous antiquary was a perfect godsend to one of our crippled men.
His business was that of a second-hand dealer, and he said it was a rare
chance to get hold of that book and make copious notes from it which
would be invaluable to him afterwards.
Turning aside from technical subjects to literature in general, I would
like to say that although we have not ever attempted to force good books
on our soldiers, we have of course taken great care to place them within
their reach. And it is not an illusion to say that when the men once
begin on a better class of book, they do not as a rule return to the
old stuff which formerly constituted their whole range of reading. My
own impression is that they read rubbish because they have had no one
to tell them what to read. Stevenson, for instance, has lifted many a
young soldier in our hospital on to a higher plane of reading whence he
has looked down with something like scorn—which is really very funny—on
his former favourites. For that group of readers, ‘Treasure Island’ has
been a discovery in more senses than one, and to the librarians a boon
unspeakable.
We have had, however, a large number of men who in any case care for good
literature, and indeed would read nothing else. Needless to say, we have
had special pleasure in trying to find them some book which they would be
sure to like and which was already in our collection, or else in buying
it, and thus adding to our stock. The publishers, too, have been most
generous in sending us any current book which has aroused public interest
and on which we have set our hearts. For we have tried to acquire not
only standard works, but books of the moment bearing on the war, and
other subjects too.
The following are items from two or three of our order books. The order
books have been chosen at random, but the items are consecutive; and
the list will give some idea of the nature of our pilgrimages from one
bedside to another bedside, and from one ward to another.
One of Nat Gould’s novels; Regiments at the Front; Burns’s Poems; A book
on bird life; ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’; _Strand Magazine_; _Strand
Magazine_; _Wide World Magazine_; _The Spectator_; A scientific book;
_Review of Reviews_; ‘By the Wish of a Woman’ (Marchmont); one of Rider
Haggard’s; Marie Corelli; Nat Gould; Rider Haggard; Nat Gould; Nat Gould;
Nat Gould; Good detective story; Something to make you laugh; _Strand
Magazine_; Adventure story; ‘Tale of Two Cities’; ‘Gil Blas’; Browning’s
Poems; Tolstoy’s ‘Resurrection’; Sexton Blake; ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’; Nat
Gould; _Wide World Magazine_; _Pearson’s Magazine_; ‘Arabian Nights’;
Jack London; Shakespeare; Nat Gould; ‘The Encyclopædia’; Rex Beach;
Wm. Le Queux; _Strand Magazine_; Nat Gould; Something in the murder
line; _Country Life_; _The Story Teller Magazine_; one of Oppenheim’s
novels; ‘The Crown of Wild Olive’; ‘Kidnapped’; Nat Gould; Shakespeare;
Nat Gould; Silas Hocking; Oppenheim; Le Queux; Nat Gould; Nat Gould;
Jack London; ‘Handy Andy’; ‘Kidnapped’; ‘Treasure Island’; Book about
rose growing; ‘Montezuma’s Daughter’ (Rider Haggard); ‘Prisoner of
Zenda’; Macaulay’s Essays; ‘The Magnetic North’ (Elizabeth Robins); Nat
Gould; Sexton Blake; Modern High Explosives; ‘Dawn’ (Rider Haggard);
‘Wild Animals’; Book on horse-breaking; ‘Radiography’; ‘Freckles’ (by
Gene Stratton-Porter); ‘The Blue Lagoon’; ‘Caged Birds’; ‘The Corsican
Brothers’; ‘Sherlock Holmes’; French Dictionary; Kipling; ‘Mysticism’;
Nat Gould; ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’; ‘Mystery of Cloomber’ (Conan Doyle); and
so on.
These are, of course, only a few items. I should say that on the whole,
and leaving out entirely books on technical and special subjects, the
authors most frequently asked for by the average soldier are: Nat Gould,
Charles Garvice, Wm. Le Queux, Rider Haggard, Guy Boothby, Oppenheim, Rex
Beach, Conan Doyle, Marie Corelli, Joseph and Silas Hocking, Jack London,
Dickens, Mrs. Henry Wood, Kipling (whose ‘Barrack Room Ballads’ they
learnt by heart), Dumas, Ian Hay, Baroness Orczy, and Hornung’s ‘Raffles.’
And very favourite books are those dealing with wild animals and their
habits, with ferrets, rats, and birds, and all stories of adventure and
travel, and of course detective stories.
The New Zealanders and Australians have always asked for books on
England, and also for Bushranger stories, also for their own poets. And
even before we began to pay special attention to technical subjects, all
books on aeroplanes, submarines, electricity, and wireless telegraphy
were much in request. An Encyclopædia was so much asked for that we
wrote to Mr. Dent, who most kindly sent us the twelve volumes of the
‘Everyman’s Encyclopædia.’ And they are always ‘out.’ Shakespeare holds
his own surprisingly and encouragingly well.
The Society novel is never read, and we weeded it out to make room for
another class of book which would be in demand. We have been sometimes
astonished by the kind of book asked for by some man who seemed to us
a most unpromising reader. The puzzle has been solved when we learnt
that he had seen it on the cinematograph. ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’ was
one of the books asked for in these circumstances, and our soldier was
literally riveted to it until he had finished it, when he passed it on
to his neighbour as a sort of ‘real find.’ Similarly, ‘Much Ado about
Nothing’ was asked for, and after that several volumes of Shakespeare
were taken to that bedside. This experience certainly shows that the
cinema has a great possibility of doing good as well as harm.
The magazines most in demand are _The Strand_, _The Windsor_,
_Pearson’s_, _The Wide World_, _The Red_, and a few others. But some
of our readers have refused to be interested in any magazines except
their own pet ones. One man, for instance, confined himself entirely to
_Blackwood’s_. He proudly preferred an old number of _Maga_ to a current
number of any other magazine on earth. A second man remained loyal to
the _Review of Reviews_, and a third to _Land and Water_. Another was
never satisfied with anything except _The Nineteenth Century_. Others
have asked only for wretched little rags which one would wish to see
perish off the face of the earth. But as time has gone on, these have
been less and less asked for, and their place has been gradually taken by
the _Sphere_, the _Graphic_, the _Tatler_, the _Illustrated London News_,
and the _Sketch_—another instance of a better class of literature being
welcomed and accepted if put within easy reach. In our case this has been
made continuously possible by friends who have given subscriptions for
both monthly and weekly numbers, and by others who send in their back
numbers in batches, and by the publishers, who never fail us.
_John Bull_ deserves a paragraph all to himself. The popularity of his
paper is truly remarkable. The average soldier looks upon it as a sort
of gospel; and new arrivals from the trenches are cheered up at once by
the very sight of the well-known cover. Even if they are too ill to read
it, they like to have it near them ready for the moment when returning
strength gives them the incentive to take even a glance at some of its
pages.
We have found that men who have not naturally been readers have acquired
the habit of reading in our Hospital, and there have been many instances
of men who have become out-patients asking for permission to continue
to use the library. It has been one of our great pleasures to see old
friends strolling into the recreation room and picking out for themselves
some book by an author whom they have learnt to know and appreciate.
Another gratifying feature of the work has been the anxiety of many of
our readers to have a book waiting for them after an operation, so that
as soon as possible they may begin to read it and forget some of their
pains and sufferings. In many instances the author or the subject has
been deliberately chosen beforehand.
Our experiences, in fact, have tended to show that a library department
organised and run by people who have some knowledge of books might prove
to be a useful asset in any hospital, both military and civil, and be the
means of affording not only amusement and distraction, but even definite
education, induced of course, not insisted on. To obtain satisfactory
results it would seem, however, that even a good and carefully chosen
collection of books of all kinds does not suffice. In addition, an
official librarian is needed who will supply the initiative, which in
the circumstances is of necessity lacking, and whose duty it is to visit
the wards, study the temperaments, inclinations, and possibilities of
the patients, and thus find out by direct personal intercourse what will
amuse, help, stimulate, lift—and heal.
_LOST HORSES._
A month or so after the traitor Maritz had made his flamboyant
proclamation in German South-West Africa, a small body of mounted Union
troops was operating in a district which may be described as ‘somewhere
near Upington.’ Probably such secrecy of places and names is not at all
necessary, but it lends an appropriate military flavour to the small
events I describe. I may go so far as to say that the setting I have
provided is fictitious, though similar events did, no doubt, occur in
the operations against Maritz and Kemp and their heroes. The characters
of the roan horse and of the boy Frikkie are true to life, and the small
adventures did occur much as described, but in another country in South
Africa and upon a different occasion. Accept the story as fiction, not
as history; it will at any rate serve to throw a light upon one of the
aspects of the fighting in that dry land, and it illustrates the close
relationship between horse and man in that country of long distances and
sparse population and infrequent water-holes. The conditions are the
absolute antithesis of those in Flanders and the trenches.
The risk of losing his riding or pack animals is constantly present to
the veld traveller. Fortunately it is seldom the cause of anything more
troublesome than a temporary inconvenience, but there are occasions when
serious hardships result, the loss of valuable time or of your animals,
or risk to your own life. In most cases the loss of your beasts is due
merely to the fact that they have strayed. They have, as a rule, either
followed the lead of some restless animal who is making back for his
stable, or else they have wandered away in search of grass or water.
A horse is less hardy than his hybrid half-brother, and more the slave
of his belly. Thirst and hunger pinch him at once, and he is quick in
search of comfort; he is therefore more likely to stop and suffer capture
at the first patch of good grass he comes to. His superficial character,
moreover, generally affords some indication both of the reason he has
strayed and the direction he has taken. There are, however, a few horses
who are inveterate and troublesome wanderers; they are generally old
animals whose accumulated experience has developed a cunning foreign
to their normal character. Such animals often possess an irritating
facility for choosing the most inconvenient time to stray and the most
unlikely direction to go.
If horses are the most frequent offenders, their sins in this respect
are seldom serious. In my own experience mules are more liable to travel
back along the road they have come than horses; they are more creatures
of habit, their memory is more retentive, and they have greater natural
intelligence. When a mule has acquired the habit of absenting himself
from duty he is a perpetual trouble. The most malignant form of this
disease occurs when the beast has developed an insatiable longing for one
particular place, a definite goal from which nothing will turn him. This
haven of his constant desire is generally the place where he was born, or
where he passed the pleasant days of his absurd youth.
There are traits in most horses which, in conjunction with this
foundation of congenital simplicity, go to make ‘character.’ Men who have
dealt with horses in the less frequented parts of the earth know this
well. They will remember one animal who had in a highly developed degree
that instinctive correctness of demeanour which can best be described as
good manners; a second had a heart like a lion and checked at nothing;
another was a prey to an incurable nervousness; while yet another was
just simply mean. These mean horses are a perpetual menace; you never
know when they will let you down. Sometimes they are clearly actuated by
malice; sometimes, however, there is a subtle quality and timeliness in
their apparent stupidity which gives you a horrid suspicion that you’ve
been had, and that your horse is more of a rogue than a fool. Such an
animal is always an old horse, never a young one.
I am not quite clear as to what a scout should look like. The typical
scout of the North American Indian days, as exemplified in the person
of Natty Bumpo, wore fringed buckskin and moccasins and coon-skin cap,
while Texas Bill and his vivid companions had a more picturesque costume
still, in which great silver-studded saddles and jingling spurs and
monstrous revolvers bore a conspicuous part. I must confess that my own
nine sportsmen were scrubby-looking fellows compared to their picturesque
predecessors at the game. (The khaki trousers issued by an administration
which was always more practical than picturesque do not lend themselves,
in this generation at any rate, to romance.) But they were a hard and
useful lot, much sunburnt, and with gnarled, scarred hands. Deerslayer
himself probably could not have taught them much about their own veld
craft. Every one was South African born; three of them were younger sons
of loyal Boer farmers. One was a coloured boy, a quiet, capable fellow.
He was with us nominally as a sort of groom, but his civil manners and
extraordinary capacity soon won him an accepted place in the scouts;
though he rode and ate with us, he always sat a little apart in camp. He
had spent three or four years up country, where I had first come across
him in fact, and had shot some amount of big game; he was excellent on
spoor and had a wonderful eye for country, and I really think he was the
quickest man on and off a horse, and the quickest and most brilliant shot
I ever saw. He stood on the roster as Frederick Collins, but was never
known by any other name than Frikkie.
The commandant of the rather nondescript commando, which was officially
described, I believe, as a composite regiment, had a sound idea of the
value of a few competent and well-mounted scouts, and had done us very
well in the matter of horse. We had been ‘on commando’ now for nearly
five weeks, and had got to know our animals pretty well. During the
confusion and changes of the first fortnight I had got rid of a dozen
horses I saw would be of no use for our work, though suitable, no doubt,
for slower troop duty, and by a cunning process of selection had got
together a very serviceable lot, with four spare animals to carry kit and
water on the longer trips away from the main body. Your spirited young
things, though well enough to go courting on, are apt to get leg-weary
and drop condition too soon on steady work, and all my mob were aged and
as hard as nails. I will describe one or two of them presently.
Things were getting a little exciting about that time. Three rebel
commandos, or rather bands, were known to be in the neighbourhood, and it
was essential to find out what their strength was and who their leaders
were. There was not much reason to fear attack, for they were not well
found in either guns or ammunition, and their ragamuffin cavalry were
concerned to avoid and not invite a stand-up engagement. Rapidity of
action was essential to the loyal troops, for the longer the rebellion
dragged on the more risk there was of it spreading. It was necessary to
find out at once the actual movements of these bands, and the best way
of doing so was to keep tally of the water-holes. Men can, if necessary,
carry water for themselves, but horses, especially those from the
moist high veld of the Transvaal, must have water regularly or they
go to pieces very quickly in that dry, hot land. And so the remote and
forgotten pit at Ramib had suddenly become of importance, and I had been
told to send two men to examine it at once.
It lay within the rocky belt which came down south of the Orange River
somewhat to our right; it was supposed to be twenty miles away, but it
might prove five miles less or ten miles more. It was known to have held
water fifteen months before, and our business was to find out if it still
held water, how long that water would be likely to last, and if any of
the rebels had been to it recently. No one in the column was aware of
its exact location, but I myself knew enough of those parts to guess
roughly where it must lie. I decided to take one man and a pack-horse,
and to take the patrol myself. No native guide was available, and the
Colonel did not, for obvious reasons, care to make use of any of the few
local Boers who carried on a wretched existence as farmers in that barren
country.
My own horse was a big bay, an uncomfortable beast, but capable of
covering much ground; like many big men, he had little mental elasticity
and no vices. Frikkie had an unassuming bay of ordinary manners and
capacity, and with a natural aptitude for routine and a military life.
The third horse was a king of his class. He did not belong to the scouts,
but I had borrowed him to carry the pack on that patrol. He was mean
all through; in colour a sort of skewbald roan, and in character an
irreclaimable criminal. He had a narrow chest, weedy white legs, and
a pale shifty eye; he was very free with his heels, and an inveterate
malingerer. He had never carried a pack before and we were prepared for
trouble, for his malevolent spirit had already acquired a wide reputation.
The patrol left the column a little before sunset, after a windless,
baking day. The horses were in excellent fettle. The roan had given some
trouble with the pack, but before he could throw himself down or buck
through the lines he was hustled out of camp to an accompaniment of oaths
and cheers in two languages. Once away and alone he went quietly, but
doubtless with hate in his heart, for his beastly eye was full of gall.
Dawn found us hidden on the top of a low stony kopje, the horses tied
together among the brown boulders below. It was bitter cold as the light
grew, and the sun came up into an empty world. I waited there for half
an hour, partly to find any signs of white men, and partly to work out
the lay of the land and the probable direction of the pit. Nothing was
moving in the whole world. It was clear where the water must be. On the
right was the usual barren desert country we had come through during the
night, low ridges of stone and shale, and a thin low scrub of milk bush
and cactus. On the left the land grew much rougher towards the river; the
rocky valleys stretched for miles in that direction. Presently we led the
horses down off the kopje, and an hour later saw us looking down at the
chain of small holes, still full of good water. I stayed with the hidden
horses while Frikkie cut a circle round the pools. There was no sign of
life, he reported, only the old sandal spoor of some natives; no horse
had been down to the water for weeks, probably for months. We off-saddled
in a hidden corner some way from the water, and got a small fire going of
thin dry sticks. The horses were given a drink and turned loose. It was
criminal foolishness not to have hobbled or knee-haltered the roan, for
ten minutes after they were let go Frikkie called out that the horses had
completely disappeared.
One realised at once that there was no time to be lost. It was probable
that the roan had led them away, and that he meant business. The saddles
and pack were hurriedly hidden among some rocks with the billy of
half-cooked rice, the fire was put out, and we took up the spoor.
It was soon evident that the animals were travelling, and were not
straying aimlessly in search of feed. The spoor of the discoloured
strawberry beast was always in front—his footprints were like his
character, narrow and close. Above his tracks came those of Ruby, the
police horse, round ordinary hoof-marks, and well shod; my own horse’s
immense prints were always last, solid and unmistakable. Mile after
mile the tracks led into a rockier and more barren country. What little
stunted and thorny scrub there was had not yet come into leaf, and there
was no shade and no sign of green anywhere. Ridges of sharp gravel and
small kopjes of brown stone alternated with narrow valleys without sign
of green or water. In the softer ground of these valleys the spoor was
plain and could be followed without any trouble, but on the rocky ridges
the tracks became difficult to hold where the horses had separated and
wandered about. The trail led eastwards, into a rocky, waterless, and
uninhabited country. There was no reason for the roan’s choice but just
native malice, for he had come from the west the previous day. Doubtless
the main camp would be his ultimate destination, but it seemed apparent
that he intended to inflict as deep an injury as he could before he set
his sour face again to the west.
It was within half an hour of sundown before I came up with the horses,
and then only the two bays; the roan’s spoor showed that he had gone on
about an hour before. They were standing under a bunch of thorn trees,
the only shade they had passed since they were let go that morning. For
the last mile or two the tracks, which had become more aimless as the hot
afternoon wore on, had turned a little to the north. Probably, as the
allegiance of his small following had weakened, the leader’s thoughts
had turned to the companionship of the camp, and when they had finally
refused to follow him any further he had abandoned the rest of his
revenge and had turned frankly for home.
We rounded up the two horses and thought of our camp, probably eight
miles away in a direct line. Though they were tired and empty they would
not be caught, and it was soon evident that they would not be driven
either. I will not ask you to follow the dreadful hour which ensued. This
crowning flicker of rebellion at the end of a disastrous day nearly broke
our hearts. It was well after dark when we finally abandoned the horses
in an area of steep rocky ridges and narrow valleys covered with cactus;
it was quite impossible to cope with them in the dark in such a country.
We reached camp about ten, but were too tired and disappointed to make a
fire. A tin of bully-beef, and the mass of opaque jelly which had once
been good Patna rice, were the first pleasant incidents of a baking,
hungry day.
The second day began before dawn with as large a breakfast as we could
compass: black coffee, the little bread that was left, and a large
quantity of rice. I have seldom eaten a more cheerless meal. Three or
four pounds of rice, some coffee, a tin or two of bully, and a little
sugar were all that remained to us, and there was no chance of getting
more. I must confess that at this stage a tactical error was committed
which cost us the long day’s work for nothing. A golden rule where lost
animals are concerned is to stick to the spoor, but as I thought it very
probable that the horses would turn north and west again during the night
and make for their last place of sojourn, I tried to save half a dozen
hours by cutting the spoor ahead. It was nearly noon, and a mile or two
beyond where the roan had left the others, before it became a certainty
that the horses had done the unlikely thing, and had gone either south or
further east into the broken country. At that moment they were probably
ten miles away. I then did what one should have done at first, and went
to the point where we had last seen them. That afternoon was hotter
and emptier than the last, and sunset found us on a cold spoor going
north. We had wisely brought rice and coffee and water-bags with us that
morning, and Frikkie had shot a klipspringer—baboons and klipspringer
were the only animals we had seen the last two days. If you suppose that
we had used any of the water for washing you are making a mistake, though
Heaven knows that we both would have been the better for a bath. We slept
on the spoor, and bitter cold it was without blankets; there was not
scrub enough for a decent fire.
Matters were getting serious. We were then twelve miles from the saddlery
and, so far as we knew, the nearest water, and twenty more from the camp.
If the horses were not found and caught that day they would have to be
abandoned, and we would have to pad the hoof home _via_ the disastrous
pools at Ramib.
But fortune does not frown for ever; it is a long worm that has no
turning. Within an hour of sunrise we came into the quite fresh tracks of
the horses crossing their own spoor. Frikkie exclaimed that there were
three horses, and an examination showed the narrow tracks of the red
horse with the other two; they had not found water and were evidently
on their way back to Ramib. We came on to the animals a few minutes
afterwards. Except that they were hollow from want of water they were
none the worse, and apparently they were not sorry to see us. By the time
the sun was in the north they had had a good drink and were finishing the
little grain in the pack. Midnight saw us riding into the main camp—only
to find it deserted, for the column had marched. The camp was apparently
completely empty, and it felt very desolate under a small moon. I
expected I would discover a message of some sort for me at sunrise; in
the meantime the obvious thing was to keep out of the way, so I went half
a mile off into the veld, and the boy and I kept watch by turn until dawn.
Nothing moved in or round the camp till near sunrise, when three men rode
out of some shale ridges about a mile away on the opposite side, and came
down to the water. By the white bands round the left arm—the sign of
loyal troops—I knew them for our own men; indeed we had recognised the
horse one of them was riding. They gave me the message they had stayed
behind to deliver. We were to stay and watch the camp site for three or
four days, and to patrol daily some distance to the south-east. The water
was important, for it was quite probable that one or other of the rebel
commandos would come to it. The men had hidden provisions for us and some
grain for the horses; they themselves were to hurry on to the column
with our report of the Ramib pits. We rode a few miles along the column
spoor with them, and then turned off on some gravelly ground and fetched
a compass round back to the place in the shale ridges where the men had
slept and where the provisions were. We took no more chances with the
strawberry horse; he was closely hobbled.
The loss of the animals had been a serious thing, and we were extremely
fortunate to have got out of it so easily. It did not lessen the
annoyance to realise that it was my own fault for not hobbling the
roan, but only a rogue by constitution and habit would have carried his
hostility to so dangerous a length. But within a week he was to provide
another taste of his quality. This time nothing more serious was involved
than the risk of his own loss, for we were never led far from water in so
menacing and barren a country as that beyond Ramib.
Most of that day was spent in the stony krantz, from which a view could
be obtained over the whole dry, grey landscape, and the pools a mile
away. In normal times the laagte was frequently used for sheep grazing,
but in these days of mobile and ever-hungry commandos the few farmers in
the vicinity were grazing their meagre flocks nearer their homesteads.
Except for a few wandering Griquas, and possibly a band of ragged rebels
on tired horses, it was not likely that our watch would be interrupted. A
rough shelter made of the stunted spiny scrub served as a sentry box; the
saddles were hidden in a narrow cleft on the lee side of the ridge, and
the horses were kept down in the valleys.
In the afternoon we saddled up and rode south and east, keeping for the
most part to the rough ridges, and overlooking the level country along
which our column had come, and which was the natural approach from that
side for any body of men having wheeled transport with them. We did not
ride for more than an hour, but my glasses showed an empty, treeless
world for miles beyond. If the commandos did come our way they would
probably trek by night; we should hear them arrive and laager about dawn,
and sunrise would have seen us well on our way to our own men.
Just at dusk that evening we rode along the lee of the ridge upon which
our poor home was. Frikkie was riding the roan. He was leading his
own animal, for a single horse could not be left grazing alone, to be
picked up, perhaps, by any wandering rebel, or to stray off in search
of companionship. When we passed under the highest point of the ridge I
stopped and sent Frikkie to the top, for he could spy in both directions
from there. I took the led horse from him, and he threw the roan’s
reins over the neck to trail on the ground—the accepted instruction
to every trained veld horse to stand still. I watched the boy’s slim
figure against the sunset sky in the west as he turned about, searching
the veld through his binoculars, though it was really getting too dark
for prism glasses. He called out that nothing was moving, and presently
came lightly down the steep slope in the gathering dusk. As he reached
his horse the beast turned his quarters to him and walked away; the boy
walked round, but again the horse turned away; and when I put my horse
across to check him he lifted his head and trotted off. We knew that we
couldn’t catch the beast if his views on the matter did not coincide with
ours, so we walked on the half-mile to where the skerm was, thinking the
horse would follow up his mates at his leisure.
This was a new, but not unexpected, trait in an already depraved
character. Some horses, though they are inveterate strayers, are easy
to catch when you do come up with them; others are very difficult to
catch, though they seldom go more than a mile from the camp; this hectic
degenerate apparently combined both these bad habits.
An hour after dark the horse had not turned up, though our own reliable
animals were knee-haltered and turned loose for a time with their
nosebags on as decoys. At dawn he was not visible in any of the shallow
valleys we could see to the east of the ridge; and to our surprise and
concern he was not in the valley where the water was and where the camp
had been.
Our own horses were knee-haltered short and let go, and we spent a
careful hour examining the margin of the pool, but there was no narrow
spoor to show that the roan had been down to drink during the night. I
spent the morning with our horses and on the look-out, while the boy cut
a wide semicircle round to the south and west of the water. He came in at
mid-day, certain that the truant had not gone out in those directions.
Then Frikkie took over the sentry work, and I set out to cover the
remainder of the circle. I worked methodically along the soft ground of
the valleys outside the range of the area already fouled by the spoor of
our own animals, and where I would find the roan’s tracks at once. From
time to time I climbed one of the low ridges, for the boy was to spread
a light-coloured saddle blanket over a prominent rock on the side away
from the water as a signal if he saw either the lost horse or anyone
approaching from the south, or in case of other danger. Nothing occurred
during the long, hot afternoon.
That evening, when I got back to camp, I found two Griquas sitting over
the coals with Frikkie. They said they were shepherds, and they may have
done a little of that congenial work recently, but they looked to me more
like sheep-stealers. They were wild people from the Orange River, and I
was sure they had never been any sort of farm labourers. However, they
were friendly enough and promised help in the morning. The horse had
then been without water since the morning of the previous day. He had
not strayed away, for at sunset he must have been still within four or
five miles of the camp; if he had intended business we would have cut his
outgoing spoor during the day. Horses were too valuable in that country
and at that time for the loss of even such a three-cornered abomination
as the pink horse to be taken lightly.
Morning showed that the horse had not been to the water during the night.
He had then been forty-eight hours without water. The only thing was to
take up the spoor where the animal had last been seen, and so stick to it
till he was found. The Kalahari bushmen have the reputation of being the
finest trackers in South Africa, but these two cross-bred Griqua bushmen
gave us an incomparable exhibition of skill. I have had some experience
of that game, and Frikkie was a master, but these savages astonished us.
Inch by inch the spoor was picked out from that of the other animals. No
proved mark was abandoned until the next was certified, often only an
inch or two away. The only slight help they had was the rare and very
faint mark where the trailing reins had touched the ground. The first
hundred yards took probably an hour to cover, but when the spoor reached
comparatively clean ground the work was easier. At this point Frikkie got
the water-bags and some food and joined the bushmen, for it was possible
that the horse, driven by thirst, had taken it into his head to travel
far during the previous night.
Late that evening the trackers returned with the horse. He was emaciated
and weak, but otherwise quite well, though for some days his back was
tender from the continual ‘sweating’ of the saddle blanket. His spoor
showed that he had spent the first night and day wandering about the
low ridges and hollows not far from our camp, and that the night before
he had commenced to journey away into the empty country to the east.
Somewhere about dawn of that third day his trailing reins had hooked up
on one of the few bushes in that country strong enough to hold him, and
there he was found by the bushmen, the picture of a natural misery, and
too dejected to take much notice of his rescuers. Nothing but his own
gloomy thoughts had prevented him from going down to the water at any
time, or to the companionship of our camp.
Thirty-six hours after this we were back with the main column. It is not
necessary to add that we were glad to get a bath and a generous meal,
and that I took the first opportunity of handing over the parti-coloured
strawberry to troop duty.
In the first of these two offences it is clear that the white-legged
roan was animated by spite. Such malevolence is rare enough, but his
second performance is much more remarkable. I offer three alternative
explanations. The first is that it was just stupidity. I have the poorest
opinion of the intelligence of the horse, as distinct from instinct. It
is Professor Lloyd Morgan, I think, who defines instinct as ‘the sum
of inherited habits,’ and this may be accepted as a sound definition.
Elementary necessity, to say nothing of instinct or intelligence, should
have driven him to the water soon after he had obtained his freedom.
He could not have forgotten where the water was. If his normal mental
process was so dislocated by the fact of the saddle on his back without
the presence of the masterful human in it, then he was a fool of the
first class.
The second solution I offer is that his action was prompted by roguery;
for even a very limited intelligence would have warned him that he would
be captured if he ventured near either the water or the camp. It may be
that when his reins hooked up he was on his way to the free water at
Ramib. The third explanation is that he was a little daft. In a long and
varied experience of horses I cannot really remember one so afflicted,
though I had a pack-mule once that I am certain was a harmless lunatic.
You may take your choice of these alternatives; for my part I incline to
the second.
John Ridd’s rustic wisdom led him to express the opinion, upon the
memorable occasion when John Fry was bringing him home from Blundell’s
School at Tiverton, that ‘a horse (like a woman) lacks, and is better
without, self-reliance.’
R. T. CORYNDON.
‘_THE PROGRESS OF PICKERSDYKE._’
Second Lieutenant William Pickersdyke, sometime quarter-master-sergeant
of the ⸺th Battery and now adjutant of a divisional ammunition column,
stared out of the window of his billet and surveyed the muddy and
uninteresting village street with eyes of gloom. His habitual optimism
had for once failed him, and his confidence in the gospel of efficiency
had been shaken. For Fate, in the portly guise of his fatuous old
colonel, had intervened to balk the fulfilment of his most cherished
desire. Pickersdyke had that morning applied for permission to be
transferred to his old battery if a vacancy occurred, and the colonel had
flatly declined to forward the application.
Now one of the few military axioms which have not so far been disproved
in the course of this war is the one which lays down that second
lieutenants must not argue with colonels. Pickersdyke had left his
commanding officer without betraying the resentment which he felt, but in
the privacy of his own room, however, he allowed himself the luxury of
vituperation.
‘Blooming old woman!’ he said aloud. ‘Incompetent, rusty old dug-out!
Thinks he’s going to keep me here running his bally column for ever, I
suppose. Selfish, that’s what ’e is—and lazy too.’
In spite of the colonel’s pompous reference to ‘the exigencies of
the service,’ that useful phrase which covers a multitude of minor
injustices, Pickersdyke had legitimate cause for grievance. Nine months
previously, when he had been offered a commission, he had had to choose
between Sentiment, which bade him refuse and stay with the battery to
whose well-being he had devoted seven of the best years of his life, and
Ambition, which urged him, as a man of energy and brains, to accept his
just reward with a view to further advancement. Ambition, backed by his
major’s promise to have him as a subaltern later on, had vanquished.
Suppressing the inevitable feeling of nostalgia which rose in him, he had
joined the divisional ammunition column, prepared to do his best in a
position wholly distasteful to him.
In an army every unit depends for its efficiency upon the system of
discipline inculcated by its commander, aided by the spirit of individual
enthusiasm which pervades its members; the less the enthusiasm the
sterner must the discipline be. Now a D.A.C., as it is familiarly called,
is not, in the inner meaning of the phrase, a cohesive unit. In peace it
exists only on paper; it is formed during mobilisation by the haphazard
collection of a certain number of officers, mostly ‘dug-outs’; close
upon 500 men, nearly all reservists; and about 700 horses, many of which
are rejections from other and, in a sense, more important units. Its
business, as its name indicates, is to supply a division with ammunition,
and its duties in this connection are relatively simple. Its wagons
transport shells, cartridges, and bullets to the brigade ammunition
columns, whence they return empty and begin again. It is obvious that
the men engaged upon this work need not, in ordinary circumstances, be
heroes; it is also obvious that their rôle, though fundamentally an
important one, does not tend to foster an intense _esprit de corps_. A
man can be thrilled at the idea of a charge or of saving guns under a
hurricane of fire, but not with the monotonous job of loading wagons and
then driving them a set number of miles daily along the same straight
road. A stevedore or a carter has as much incentive to enthusiasm for his
work.
The commander of a D.A.C., therefore, to ensure efficiency in his
unit, must be a zealous disciplinarian with a strong personality. But
Pickersdyke’s new colonel was neither. The war had dragged him from a
life of slothful ease to one of bustle and discomfort. Being elderly,
stout, and constitutionally idle, he had quickly allowed his early zeal
to cool off, and now, after six months of the campaign, the state of his
command was lamentable. To Pickersdyke, coming from a battery with proud
traditions and a high reputation, whose members regarded its good name
in the way that a son does that of his mother, it seemed little short of
criminal that such laxity should be permitted. On taking over a section
he ‘got down to it,’ as he said, at once, and became forthwith a most
unpopular officer. But that, though he knew it well, did not deter him.
He made the lives of various sergeants and junior N.C.O.s unbearable
until they began to see that it was wiser ‘to smarten themselves up a
bit’ after his suggestion. In a month the difference between his section
and the others was obvious. The horses were properly groomed and had
begun to improve in their condition—before, they had been poor to a
degree; the sergeant-major no longer grew a weekly beard nor smoked a
pipe during stable hour; the number of the defaulters, which under the
new régime was at first large, had dwindled to a negligible quantity. In
two months that section was for all practical purposes a model one, and
Pickersdyke was able to regard the results of his unstinted efforts with
satisfaction.
The colonel, who was not blind where his own interests were concerned,
sent for Pickersdyke one day and said:
‘You’ve done very well with your section; it’s quite the best in the
column now.’
Pickersdyke was pleased; he was as modest as most men, but he appreciated
recognition of his merits. Moreover, for his own ends, he was anxious
to impress his commanding officer. He was less pleased when the latter
continued:
‘I’m going to post you to No. 3 Section now, and I hope you’ll do the
same with that.’
No. 3 Section was notorious. Pickersdyke, if he had been a man of
Biblical knowledge (which he was not), would have compared himself to
Jacob, who waited seven years for Rachel and then was tricked into taking
Leah. The vision of his four days’ leave—long overdue—faded away. He
foresaw a further and still more difficult period of uncongenial work in
front of him. But, having no choice, he was obliged to acquiesce.
Once again he began at the beginning, instilling into unruly minds the
elementary notions that orders are given to be obeyed, that the first
duty of a mounted man is to his horses, and that personal cleanliness
and smartness in appearance are military virtues not beneath notice.
This time the drudgery was even worse, and he was considerably hampered
by the touchiness and jealousy of the real section commander, who was a
dug-out captain of conspicuous inability. There was much unpleasantness,
there was at one time very nearly a mutiny, and there were not a few
courts-martial. It was three months and a half before that section found,
so to speak, its military soul.
And then the colonel, satisfied that the two remaining sections were
well enough commanded to shift for themselves if properly guided,
seized his chance and made Pickersdyke his adjutant. Here was a man,
he felt, endowed with an astonishing energy and considerable powers of
organisation, the very person, in fact, to save his commanding officer
trouble and to relieve him of all real responsibility.
This occurred about the middle of July. From then until well on into
September, Pickersdyke remained a fixture in a small French village on
the lines of communication, miles from the front, out of all touch with
his old comrades, with no distractions and no outlet for his energies
except work of a purely routine character.
‘It might be peace-time and me a bloomin’ clerk’ was how he expressed
his disgust. But he still hoped, for he believed that to the efficient
the rewards of efficiency come in due course and are never long
delayed. Without being conceited, he was perhaps more aware of his own
possibilities than of his limitations. In the old days in his battery
he had been the major’s right-hand man and the familiar (but always
respectful) friend of the subalterns. In the early days of the war he had
succeeded amazingly where others in his position had certainly failed.
His management of affairs ‘behind the scenes’ had been unsurpassed. Never
once, from the moment when his unit left Havre till a month later it
arrived upon the Aisne, had its men been short of food or its horses of
forage. He had replaced deficiencies from some apparently inexhaustible
store of ‘spares’; he had provided the best billets, the safest wagon
lines, the freshest bread with a consistency that was almost uncanny. In
the darkest days of the retreat he had remained unperturbed, ‘pinching’
freely when blandishments failed, distributing the comforts as well as
the necessities of life with a lavish hand and an optimistic smile. His
wits and his resource had been tested to the utmost. He had enjoyed
the contest (it was his nature to do that), and he had come through
triumphant and still smiling.
During the stationary period on the Aisne, and later in Flanders, he had
managed the wagon line—that other half of a battery which consists of
almost everything except the guns and their complement of officers and
men—practically unaided. On more than one occasion he had brought up
ammunition along a very dangerous route at critical moments.
He received his commission late in December, at a time when his battery
was out of action, ‘resting.’ He dined in the officers’ mess, receiving
their congratulations with becoming modesty and their drink without
unnecessary reserve. It was on this occasion that he had induced his
major to promise to get him back. Then he departed, sorrowful in spite
of all his pride in being an officer, to join the column. There, in the
seclusion of his billet, he studied army lists and watched the name of
the senior subaltern of the battery creep towards the head of the roll.
When that officer was promoted captain there would be a vacancy, and that
vacancy would be Pickersdyke’s chance. Meanwhile, to fit himself for
what he hoped to become, he spent whole evenings poring over manuals of
telephony and gun-drill; he learnt by heart abstruse passages of Field
Artillery Training; he ordered the latest treatises on gunnery, both
practical and theoretical, to be sent out to him from England; and he
even battled valiantly with logarithms and a slide-rule....
From all the foregoing it will be understood how bitter was his
disappointment when his application to be transferred was refused. His
colonel’s attitude astonished him. He had expected recognition of that
industry and usefulness of which he had given unchallengeable proof. But
the colonel, instead of saying:
‘You have done well; I will not stand in your way, much as I should like
to keep you,’ merely observed,
‘I’m sorry, but you cannot be spared.’
And he made it unmistakably plain that what he meant was:
‘Do you think I’m such a fool as to let you go? I’ll see you damned
first!’
Thus it was that Pickersdyke, a disillusioned and a baffled man, stared
out of the window with wrath and bitterness in his heart. For he wanted
to go back to ‘the old troop’; he was obsessed with the idea almost to
the exclusion of everything else. He craved for the old faces and the
old familiar atmosphere as a drug-maniac craves for morphia. It was his
right, he had earned it by nine months of drudgery—and who the devil,
anyway, he felt, was this old fool to thwart him?
Extravagant plans for vengeance flitted through his mind. Supposing he
were to lose half a dozen wagons or thousands of rounds of howitzer
ammunition, would his colonel get sent home? Not he—he’d blame his
adjutant, and the latter would quite possibly be court-martialled. Should
he hide all the colonel’s clothes and only reveal their whereabouts when
the application had been forwarded? Should he steal his whisky (without
which it was doubtful if he could exist), put poison in his tea, or
write an anonymous letter to headquarters accusing him of espionage? He
sighed—ingenuity, his valuable ally on many a doubtful occasion, failed
him now. Then it occurred to him to appeal to one Lorrison, who was the
captain of his old battery, and whom he had known for years as one of his
subalterns.
‘DEAR LORRISON,’ he wrote, ‘I’ve just had an interview with
my old man and he won’t agree to my transfer. I’m afraid it’s
a wash-out unless something can be done quickly, as I suppose
Jordan will be promoted very soon.’ (Jordan was the senior
subaltern.) ‘You know how much I want to get back in time for
the big show. Can you do anything? Sorry to trouble you, and
now I must close.
‘Yours,
‘W. PICKERSDYKE.’
Then he summoned his servant. Gunner Scupham was an elderly individual
with grey hair, a dignified deportment, and a countenance which suggested
extreme honesty of soul but no intelligence whatsoever. Which fact was
of great assistance to him in the perpetration of his more complicated
villainies. He had not been Pickersdyke’s storeman for many years for
nothing. His devotion was a by-word, but his familiarity was sometimes a
little startling.
‘’E won’t let us go,’ announced Pickersdyke.
‘Strafe the blighter!’ replied Scupham feelingly. ‘I’m proper fed up with
this ’ere column job.’
‘Get the office bike, take this note to Captain Lorrison, and bring back
an answer. Here’s a pass.’
Scupham departed, grumbling audibly. It meant a fifteen-mile ride, the
day was warm, and he disliked physical exertion. He returned late that
evening with the answer, which was as follows:
‘DEAR PICKERS,—Curse your fool colonel. Jordan may go any day,
and if we don’t get you we’ll probably be stuck with some
child who knows nothing. Besides, we want you to come. The
preliminary bombardment is well under way, so there’s not much
time. Meet me at the B.A.C.[7] headquarters to-morrow evening
at 8 and we’ll fix up something. In haste,
‘Yours ever,
‘T. LORRISON.’
There are people who do not believe in luck. But if it was not luck which
assisted Pickersdyke by producing the events which followed his receipt
of that note, then it was Providence in a genial and most considerate
mood. He spent a long time trying to think of a reasonable excuse for
going to see Lorrison, but he might have saved himself the trouble. Some
light-hearted fool had sent up shrapnel instead of high explosive to the
very B.A.C. that Pickersdyke wanted to visit. Angry telephone messages
were coming through, and the colonel at once sent his adjutant up to
offer plausible explanations.
Pickersdyke covered a lot of ground that afternoon. It was necessary
to find an infuriated artillery brigadier and persuade him that the
error was not likely to occur again, and was in any case not really the
fault of the D.A.C. section commander. It was then necessary to find
this latter and make it clear to him that he was without doubt the most
incompetent officer in the allied forces, and that the error was entirely
due to his carelessness. And it was essential to arrange for forwarding
what was required.
Lorrison arrived punctually and evidently rather excited.
‘What price the news?’ he said at once.
Pickersdyke had heard none. He had been far too busy.
‘We’re for it at last—going to bombard all night till 4.30 A.M.—every
bally gun in the army as far as I can see. And we’ve got orders to be
ready to move in close support of the infantry if they get through. _To
move!_ Just think of that after all these months.’
Pickersdyke swore as he had not done since he was a rough-riding
bombardier.
‘And that’s boxed _my_ chances,’ he ended up.
‘Wait a bit,’ said Lorrison. ‘There’s a vacancy waiting for you if you’ll
take it. We got pretty badly “crumped”[8] last night. The Bosches put
some big “hows” and a couple of “pip-squeak” batteries on to us just when
we were replenishing. They smashed up several wagons and did a lot of
damage. Poor old Jordan got the devil of a shaking—he was thrown about
ten yards. Lucky not to be blown to bits, though. Anyway, he’s been sent
to hospital.’
He looked inquiringly at Pickersdyke. The latter’s face portrayed an
unholy joy.
‘Will I take his place?’ he cried. ‘Lummy! I should think I would. Don’t
care what the colonel says afterwards. When can I join? Now?’
‘As soon as I’ve seen about getting some more wagons from the B.A.C.
we’ll go up together,’ answered Lorrison.
Pickersdyke, who had no conscience whatever on occasions such as this,
sent a message to his colonel to say that he was staying up for the
night (he omitted to say precisely where!), as there would be much to
arrange in the morning. To Scupham he wrote:
‘Collect all the kit you can and come up to the battery at
once. _Say nothing._’
He was perfectly aware that he was doing a wildly illegal thing. He felt
like an escaped convict breathing the air of freedom and making for his
home and family. Forty colonels would not have stopped him at that moment.
II.
The major commanding the ⸺th Battery sat in his dug-out examining a
large-scale trench map. His watch, carefully synchronised with those
of the staff, lay on the table in front of him. Outside, his six guns
were firing steadily, each concussion (and there were twelve a minute)
shaking everything that was not a fixture in the little room. Hundreds
of guns along miles of front and miles of depth were taking part in the
most stupendous bombardment yet attempted by the army. From ‘Granny,’ the
enormous howitzer that fired six times an hour at a range of seventeen
thousand yards, to machine guns in the front line trenches, every
available piece of ordnance was adding its quota to what constituted a
veritable hell of noise.
The major had been ordered to cut the wire entanglements between two
given points and to stop firing at 4.30 A.M. precisely. He had no certain
means of knowing whether he had completed his task or not. He only
knew that his ‘lines of fire,’ his range, and his ‘height of burst’ as
previously registered in daylight were correct, that his layers could be
depended upon, and that he had put about a thousand rounds of shrapnel
into a hundred and fifty yards of front. At 4.29 he rose and stood, watch
in hand, in the doorway of his dug-out. A man with a megaphone waited at
his elbow. The major, war-worn though he was, was still young enough in
spirit to be thrilled by the mechanical regularity of his battery’s fire.
This perfection of drill was his work, the result of months and months of
practice, of loving care, and of minute attention to detail.
Dawn was beginning to creep into the sky, and he could just distinguish
the silhouettes of the two right-hand guns. The flash as one of them
fired revealed momentarily the figures of the gunners grouped round the
breech like demons round some spectral engine of destruction. Precisely
five seconds afterwards a second flash denoted that the next gun had
fired—and so on in sequence from right to left until it was the turn of
Number One again.
‘Stop,’ said the major when the minute hand of his watch was exactly over
the half-hour.
‘Stop!’ roared the man with the megaphone.
It was as if the order had been heard all along the entire front. The
bombardment ceased almost abruptly, and rifle and machine-gun fire became
audible again. On a colossal scale the effect was that of the throttling
down of a powerful motor-car whose engine had been allowed to race. Then,
not many moments afterwards, from far away to the eastward there came
faint, confused sounds of shouts and cheering. It was the infantry, the
long-suffering, tenacious, wonderful infantry charging valiantly into the
cold grey dawn along the avenues prepared by the guns....
For Pickersdyke it had been a night of pure joy, unspoilt by any qualms
of conscience. He had been welcomed at the battery as a kind of returned
wanderer and given a section of guns at once. The major—who feared no
man’s wrath, least of all that of a dug-out D.A.C. commander—had promised
to back him up if awkward questions were asked. Pickersdyke had only
one cause for disappointment—the whole thing had gone too smoothly. He
was bursting with technical knowledge, he could have repaired almost
any breakdown, and had kept a keen look-out for all ordinary mistakes.
But nothing went wrong and no mistakes were made. In this battery the
liability of human error had been reduced to a negligible minimum.
Pickersdyke had had nothing further to do than to pass orders and see
that they were duly received. Nevertheless he had loved every moment of
it, for he had come into his own—he was back in the old troop, taking
part in a ‘big show.’ As he observed to the major whilst they were
drinking hot coffee in the dug-out afterwards:
‘Even if I do get court-martialled for desertion, sir, that last little
lot was worth it!’
And he grinned as does a man well pleased with the success of his
schemes. To complete his satisfaction, Scupham appeared soon afterwards
bringing up a large bundle of kit and a few luxuries in the way of food.
It transpired that he had presented himself to the last-joined subaltern
of the D.A.C. and had bluffed that perplexed and inexperienced officer
into turning out a cart to drive him as far as the battery wagon line,
whence he had come up on an ammunition wagon.
It was almost daylight when the battery opened fire again, taking its
orders by telephone now from the F.O.O.,[9] who was in close touch with
the infantry and could see what was happening. The rate of fire was slow
at first; then it suddenly quickened, and the range was increased by a
hundred yards. Some thirty shells went shrieking on their mission and
then another fifty yards were added. The infantry was advancing steadily,
and just as steadily, sixty or seventy yards in front of their line,
the curtain of protecting shrapnel crept forward after the retiring
enemy. At one point the attack was evidently held up for a while; the
battery changed to high explosive and worked up to its maximum speed,
causing Lorrison to telephone imploring messages for more and still more
ammunition....
The long-expected order to advance, when at last it came, nearly broke
the major’s heart.
‘Send forward one section,’ it said, ‘in close support of the 2nd
Battalion ⸺shire Regiment, to the advanced position previously prepared
in J. 12.’
One section was only a third of his battery; he would have to stay
behind, and he had been dreaming nightly of this dash forward with the
infantry into the middle of things; he had had visions of that promised
land, the open country beyond the German lines, of an end to siege
warfare and a return to the varying excitement of a running fight. But
orders were orders, so he sent for Pickersdyke.
‘I’m going to send you,’ he said after showing him the order, ‘although
you haven’t seen the position before. But the other lad is too young for
this job. Look here.’
He pointed out the exact route to be followed, showed him where bridges
for crossing the trenches had been prepared, and explained everything in
his usual lucid manner. Then he held out his hand.
‘Good-bye and good luck,’ he said. Their eyes met for a moment in a
steady gaze of mutual esteem and affection. For they knew each other
well, these two men—the gentleman born to lead and to inspire, and his
ranker subordinate (a gentleman too in all that matters) highly trained,
thoroughly efficient, utterly devoted....
There was not a prouder man in the army than Pickersdyke at the moment
when he led his section out from the battery position amid the cheers of
those left behind. His luck, so he felt, was indeed amazing. He had about
a mile to go along a road that was congested with troops and vehicles
of all sorts. He blasphemed his way through (there is no other adequate
means of expressing his progress) with his two guns and four wagons
until he reached the point where he had to turn off to make for his new
position. This latter had been carefully prepared beforehand by fatigue
parties sent out from the battery at night. Gun-pits had been dug, access
made easy, ranges and angles noted down in daylight by an officer left
behind expressly for the purpose; and the whole had been neatly screened
from aerial observation. It lay a few hundred yards behind what had been
the advanced British trenches. But it was not a good place for guns;
it was only one in which they might be put if, as now, circumstances
demanded the taking of heavy risks.
Pickersdyke halted his little command behind the remains of a spinney
and went forward to reconnoitre. He was still half a mile from his goal,
which lay on a gentle rise on the opposite side of a little valley.
Allowing for rough ground and deviations from the direct route owing
to the network of trenches which ran in all directions, he calculated
that it would take him at least ten minutes to get across. Incidentally
he noticed that quite a number of shells were falling in the area he
was about to enter. For the first time he began to appreciate the exact
nature of his task. He returned to the section and addressed his men thus:
‘Now, you chaps, it’s good driving what’s wanted here. We must get the
guns there whatever happens—we’ll let down the infantry else. Follow me
and take it steady, ... Terr-ot.’
The teams and carriages jingled and rattled along behind him as he led
them forward. Smooth going, the signal to gallop, and a dash for it
would have been his choice, but that was impossible. Constantly he was
forced to slow down to a walk and dismount the detachments to haul on the
drag-ropes. The manœuvre developed into a kind of obstacle race, with
death on every side. But his luck stood by him. He reached the position
with the loss only of a gunner, two drivers, and a pair of lead horses.
As soon as he had got his guns into action and his teams away (all of
which was done quietly, quickly, and without confusion—‘as per book’
as he expressed it) Pickersdyke crawled up a communication trench,
followed by a telephonist laying a wire, until he reached a place where
he could see. It was the first time that he had been so close up to the
firing line, and he experienced the sensations of a man who looks down
into the crater of a live volcano. Somewhere in the midst of the awful
chaos in front of him was, if it still existed at all, the infantry
battalion he was supposed to have been sent to support. But how to know
where or when to shoot was altogether beyond him. He poked his glasses
cautiously through a loophole and peered into the smoke in the vain hope
of distinguishing friend from foe.
‘What the hell shall I do now?’ he muttered. ‘Can’t see no bloomin’
target in this lot.... Crikey! yes, I can, though,’ he added. ‘Both guns
two degrees more left, fuze two, eight hundred....’ He rattled off his
orders as if to the manner born. The telephonist, a man who had spent
months in the society of forward observing officers, repeated word for
word into his instrument, speaking as carefully as the operator in the
public call office at Piccadilly Circus.
The guns behind blazed and roared. A second afterwards two fleecy balls
of white smoke, out of which there darted a tongue of flame, appeared in
front of the solid grey wall of men which Pickersdyke had seen rise as if
from the earth itself and surge forward. A strong enemy counter-attack
was being launched, and he, with the luck of the tyro, had got his guns
right on to it. Methodically he switched his fire up and down the line.
Great gaps appeared in it, only to be quickly filled. It wavered, sagged,
and then came on again. Back at the guns the detachments worked till the
sweat streamed from them; their drill was perfect, their rate of fire the
maximum. But the task was beyond their powers. Two guns were not enough.
Nevertheless the rush, though not definitely stopped, had lost its full
driving force. It reached the captured trenches (which the infantry had
had no time to consolidate), it got to close quarters, but it did not
break through. The wall of shrapnel had acted like a breakwater—the
strength of the wave was spent ere it reached its mark—and like a wave
it began to ebb back again. In pursuit, cheering, yelling, stabbing, mad
with the terrible lust to kill and kill and kill, came crowds of khaki
figures.
Pickersdyke, who had stopped his fire to avoid hitting his own side and
was watching the fight with an excitement such as he had never hoped to
know, saw that the critical moment was past; the issue was decided,
and his infantry were gaining ground again. He opened fire once more,
lengthening his range so as to clear the _mêlée_ and yet hinder the
arrival of hostile reserves, which was a principle he had learnt from a
constant study of ‘the book.’
Suddenly there were four ear-splitting cracks over his head, and a shower
of earth and stones rattled down off the parapet a few yards from him.
‘We’re for it now,’ he exclaimed.
He was. This first salvo was the prelude to a storm of shrapnel from
some concealed German battery which had at last picked up the section’s
position. But Pickersdyke continued to support his advancing infantry....
‘Wire’s cut, sir,’ said the telephonist suddenly.
It was fatal. It was the one thing Pickersdyke had prayed would not
happen, for it meant the temporary silencing of his guns.
‘Mend it and let me know when you’re through again,’ he ordered. ‘I’m
going down to the section.’ And, stooping low, he raced back along the
trench.
At the guns it had been an unequal contest, and they had suffered
heavily. The detachments were reduced to half their strength, and one
wagon, which had received a direct hit, had been blown to pieces.
‘Stick it, boys,’ said Pickersdyke after a quick look round. He saw
that if he was to continue shooting it would be necessary to stand on
the top of the remaining wagon in order to observe his fire. And he was
determined to continue. He climbed up and found that the additional four
feet or so which he gained in height just enabled him to see the burst of
his shells. But he had no protection whatever.
‘Add a hundred, two rounds gun-fire,’ he shouted—and the guns flashed
and banged in answer to his call. But it was a question of time only.
Miraculously, for almost five minutes he remained where he was,
untouched. Then, just as the telephonist reported ‘through’ again the
inevitable happened. An invisible hand, so it seemed to Pickersdyke,
endowed with the strength of twenty blacksmiths, hit him a smashing
blow with a red-hot sledge-hammer on the left shoulder. He collapsed on
to the ground behind his wagon with the one word ‘_Hell!_’ And then he
fainted....
At 8 P.M. that night the ⸺th Battery received orders to join up with its
advanced section and occupy the position permanently. It was after nine
when Lorrison, stumbling along a communication trench and beginning to
think that he was lost, came upon the remnants of Pickersdyke’s command.
They were crouching in one of the gun-pits—a bombardier and three
gunners, very cold and very miserable. Two of them were wounded. Lorrison
questioned them hastily and learnt that Pickersdyke was at his observing
station, that Scupham and the telephonist were with him, and that there
were two more wounded men in the next pit.
‘The battery will be here soon,’ said Lorrison cheerily, ‘and you’ll all
get fixed up. Meanwhile here’s my flask and some sandwiches.’
‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said the bombardier, ‘but Mr. Pickersdyke ’ll need
that flask. ’E’s pretty bad, sir, I believe.’
Lorrison found Pickersdyke lying wrapped in some blankets which Scupham
had fetched from the wagon, twisting from side to side and muttering a
confused string of delirious phrases. ‘Fuze two—more _right_ I said—damn
them, they’re still advancing—what price the old ⸺th now?...’ and then a
groan and he began again.
Scupham, in a husky whisper, was trying to soothe him. ‘Lie still for
Gawd’s sake and don’t worry yourself,’ he implored.
By the time Lorrison had examined the bandages on Pickersdyke’s shoulder
and administered morphia (without a supply of which he now never moved)
the battery arrived, and with it some stretcher-bearers. Pickersdyke,
just before he was carried off, recovered consciousness and recognised
Lorrison, who was close beside him.
‘Hullo!’ he said in a weak voice. ‘Nice box-up here, isn’t it? But I
reckon we got a bit of our own back ’fore we was knocked out. Tell the
major the men were just grand. Oh! and before I forget, amongst my kit
there’s a few “spares” I’ve collected; they might come in handy for the
battery. I shan’t be away long, I hope.... Wonder what the old colonel
will say....’ His voice trailed off into a drowsy murmur—the morphia had
begun to take effect....
Lorrison detained Scupham in order to glean more information.
‘After ’e got ’it, sir,’ said Scupham, ‘’e lay still for a bit, ’arf
an hour pr’aps, and ’ardly seemed to know what was ’appening. Then ’e
suddenly calls out: “Is that there telephone workin’ yet?” “Yes, sir,”
I says—and with that ’e made for to stand up, but ’e couldn’t. So wot
does ’e do then but makes me bloomin’ well carry ’im up the trench to
the observin’ station. “Now then, Scupham,” ’e says, “prop me up by that
loophole so I can see wot’s comin’ off.” And I ’ad to ’old ’im there
pretty near all the afternoon while ’e kep’ sending orders down the
telephone and firing away like ’ell. We finished our ammunition about
five o’clock, and then ’e lay down where ’e was to rest for a bit. ’Ow
’e’d stuck it all that time with a wound like that Gawd only knows. ’E
went queer in ’is ’ead soon after and we thought ’e was a goner—and then
nothin’ much ’appened till you came up, sir, ’cept that we was gettin’ a
tidy few shells round about. D’you reckon ’e’ll get orl right, sir?’
It was evident that the unemotional Scupham was consumed with anxiety.
‘Oh! he _must_!’ cried Lorrison. ‘It would be too cruel if he didn’t pull
through after all he’s done. He’s a _man_ if ever there was one.’
‘And that’s a fact,’ said Scupham, preparing to follow his idol to the
dressing station. As he moved away Lorrison heard him mutter,
‘There ain’t no one on Gawd’s earth like old Pickers—fancy ’im
rememberin’ them there “spares.” ‘Strewth! ’e _is_ a one!’ Which was a
very high compliment indeed....
* * * * *
Official correspondence, even when it is marked ‘Pressing and
Confidential’ in red ink and enclosed in a sealed envelope, takes
a considerable time to pass through the official channels and come
back again. It was some days before the colonel commanding a certain
divisional ammunition column received an answer to his report upon the
inexplicable absence of his adjutant. He was a vindictive man who felt
that he had been left in the lurch, and he had taken pains to draft a
letter which would emphasise the shortcomings of his subordinate. The
answer, when it did come, positively shocked him. It was as follows:
‘With reference to your report upon the absence without leave
of Second Lieutenant Pickersdyke, the Major-General Commanding
directs me to say that as this officer was severely wounded on
September 25 whilst commanding a section of the ⸺th Battery
R.F.A. with conspicuous courage and ability, for which he has
been specially recommended for distinction by the G.O.C.R.A.,
and as he is now in hospital in England, no further action will
be taken in the matter.’
To be snubbed by the Staff because he had reported upon the scandalous
conduct of a mere ‘ranker’ was not at all the colonel’s idea of the
fitness of things. His fury, which vented itself chiefly upon his office
clerk, would have been greater still if he could have seen his late
adjutant comfortably ensconced in a cosy ward in one of the largest
houses of fashionable London, waited upon by ladies of title, and showing
an admiring circle of relations the jagged piece of steel which a very
famous surgeon had extracted from his shoulder free of charge!
For, in spite of his colonel, the progress of Pickersdyke on the chosen
path of his ambition was now quite definitely assured.
JEFFERY E. JEFFERY.
FOOTNOTES
[7] Brigade Ammunition Column.
[8] Shelled.
[9] Forward Observing Officer.
_BALLIOL MEMORIES._
A NOTE BY THE HON. A. E. GATHORNE-HARDY.
My article in the October number has brought me many kind letters from
old Balliol friends for which I am grateful, and one or two errors
have been called to my attention, which I should like to correct. Sir
Courtenay Ilbert points out that I am mistaken in claiming the present
Speaker as a member of Balliol College, ‘he was of Trinity, Cambridge.’
Francis Le Marchant points out that ‘Dick Webster,’ the late Lord
Alverstone, and not Lawes as stated, beat Jersey in the mile race in the
first Inter-University Sports held at Cambridge; ‘believe an eyewitness.’
Sneyd Kynnersley contributes an amusing anecdote about the latter’s
trophies. Count Karolyi was admiring his display of racing cups, and
noticing one in particular, asked what horse won it. ‘Oh,’ answered his
host, ‘I won that one myself in a three-mile race.’ ‘Do you mean to say,
Lord Jersey,’ said the Count, ‘that you ran three miles without sitting
down!’
I should like also to correct a careless error in my quotation of
Tennyson’s metrical compliment to Katherine Bradshaw. The first two lines
should read:
Because she bore the iron name
Of him who doomed ‘_his_’ King to die,
instead of, as printed, ‘_the_’ King. I am sure the exquisite ear of the
author would attach importance to the correction; he would never have
allowed the cadence and stress to fall on such an insignificant word and
sound as ‘the.’
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