War Letters of a Public-School Boy Part 21

_January 11th, 1917._

Congratulate me! I am, as I have every reason to believe, on the verge of the most stupendous good fortune that has ever yet come my way. Last night I got a wire ordering me to present myself at Headquarters, Heavy M.G.C., for interview with the Colonel-in-charge. Well, I went up for my interview this morning, and was tested for vision by the Colonel with my gla.s.ses on.

Finally he told me that he was going to recommend me for the Tanks, which means that the thing is as good as settled. I had not dared to hope for such luck, owing to the fact of my not having any special qualification. However, my usual marvellous good fortune seems not to have deserted me. It means just this, that I am going to be a member of the most modern and most interesting branch of the service. So great is my delight that I scarcely know whether I am standing on my head or my heels. The transfer will, I fear, prevent my coming home on leave for a time. Anyway, it's more than possible that I shall come back to England to train. I hope not, for despite my earnest desire--more than you can ever guess--to see you all again, I think it is far better to remain on active service, if possible, when on duty.

I've been pretty busy with my brigade work recently, though to nothing like the degree of November and the first fortnight of December. One meets strange types of humanity on this sort of duty. You can divide the countryfolk round these parts into three lots: (_a_) The farmers--on the whole honest, but decidedly avaricious; the French farmer's one fear in life is that his neighbour across the way is being paid at a higher price than he himself. (_b_) The average merchant, who is on the lookout for making a bit in all sorts of illegal ways, such as cheating us by underweight. (_c_) The honest middlemen, who, I regret to say, are few and far between. As far as possible we always try to deal with the farmers direct, as they are fairly honest, though very obstinate. An honest middleman is very useful, but there are not many of him. Business difficulties are increased by the extraordinary accent in which the country people hereabouts talk.

Sometimes even French interpreters find themselves at a loss. I am getting into it famously, and can even speak with the local accent myself, to a certain extent.

Did you see that my old colleague, E. C. Cartwright, has got the M.C.? His reports of 1st XV matches in Evans's year were the feature of _The Alleynian_, as were poor Edkins's reports in the year of my own captaincy. Also J. P. Jordan, another O.A., well known to me, has won the M.C.

I am delighted that the Old Man (Mr. A. H. Gilkes) has received the living of St. Mary Magdalene at Oxford. He could, I am sure, have never had an appointment more to his tastes--barring, indeed, his masters.h.i.+p at his beloved Dulwich. As a headmaster he was a gigantic character; of that there can be no doubt whatever.

_January 28th, 1917._

No news yet of my application for transfer. But people "in the know" tell me that it is only a question of time. The doc.u.ment having been approved and recommended by all the necessary authorities is, I presume, now wandering through the multifarious ramifications of the maze of Army offices, but I am told it will soon filter down. One thing that pleases me is an a.s.surance that the A.S.C. authorities, whatever may have happened in the past, are not this time blocking my transfer. From your knowledge of my weaknesses, you will no doubt have guessed that I'm on pins these days--the period of waiting for the result of an exam., even if you think you've pa.s.sed, is always a trying one. It is especially so for me on account of my absurdly impatient temperament. I fear that leave is out of the question till the transfer is settled one way or the other.

The cold weather now prevalent must add yet a fresh discomfort to those that are being endured by our men in the trenches. I cannot recollect a cold spell of such severity continuing for so long a time. We had a heavy snowfall a fortnight back, and since then there has been incessant and exceptionally hard frost. The roads in places are wellnigh impa.s.sable owing to frozen snow. Going down one steep hill to-day in our motor-car we all but turned completely over, as at a curve in the road the car-wheels, instead of answering to the steering gear, skidded on the frozen surface, and the car swung completely round on its axis, finis.h.i.+ng by facing the opposite way to that in which we were travelling. Where the roads are not very slippery they are as hard as iron. A curious result is that you have a thick dust raised over a snow-covered landscape and in bitterly cold weather!

I was much interested in the Balliol College pamphlet and the Master's accompanying letter. Balliol appears to have done even more than its part in the War. Did you see that the Brakenbury Scholars.h.i.+p in History for 1916 was taken by a chap from Gresham School, Holt? I often wonder whether I shall ever go up to Oxford. Almost needless to say, to go there would be the crowning joy of my life, but I cannot help thinking that circ.u.mstances will render it impossible. Still, we will hope for the best. One thing I mean to do after the War is to learn Russian thoroughly and to visit Russia. I am not at all sure that travelling is not the best of all Universities. The great disadvantage of a 'Varsity is the insularity of mind which it is apt to breed. Its rigid observance of ancient customs, its cult of "form," the fact that it is the almost exclusive monopoly of the rich, the aristocracy and the upper middle-cla.s.s; above all, its contempt for the learning of modern times and studied disregard of modern languages--all these features help to make the 'Varsity as insular as the most insular of all English national inst.i.tutions.

On the other hand, by its genuine intellectuality, by its cult of the beautiful and the abstract, by its scorn of the sordid business side of modern civilisation, by its enthusiasm for athletics and by its traditions of duty and of patriotism, the 'Varsity remains, to my mind, one of the most healthful influences in modern British life.

Talking of English insularity, it is curious to note how the Englishman makes his progress abroad. He is so insular that instead of learning the language and adopting the customs of the country he is in, he makes the indigenous population adopt his!

He does not, for example, know much French, but he has evolved a sort of patois--much nearer English than French--that enables the inhabitants to understand him and comprehend what he wants.

I have recently been reading another of John Buchan's, called "Greenmantle." If you haven't read it, get it. It is just as good as Buchan's other books, rich in mystery and scintillating with adventure. It deals with this War and the experiences of Richard Hannay (whom you will recollect as the hero of the "Thirty-nine Steps," and who has since become a Major and got wounded at Loos) in his efforts, eventually crowned with success, to crush a German plot--this plot being the working up of a "Jehad," or Holy War among the Mohammedans, and so provoking a rising of Islam against the British. A thoroughly live story, told with great spirit.

I have also read H. G. Wells's war novel, "Mr. Britling Sees It Through." It is undeniably clever, though not to my mind up to the level of Wells's very best. It rather gives the impression in parts of having been written by the mile and then lengths cut off as required. He has one very good touch, the realisation of the impersonal and indiscriminate nature of the War: it claims as victims both Mr. Britling's own son and the young German who had been living with them before the War. The book concludes with a letter from Britling to the German boy's father, attempting to find some way out of the blackness. As usual with Wells, the best feature of the novel is the way in which he expresses the point of view of the average man. He has the trick of recording reflections in a sort of staccato style, with gaps here and there--just the way that one does think. There is some rot in the book, but on the whole it is very good and well worth reading.

Recently I have been attending a Veterinary Course--lectures and practical demonstration; most fascinating it is, I can a.s.sure you.

WITH THE TANK CORPS

On February 13, 1917, Paul Jones joined the M.G.C.H.B., in other words the Tank Corps. His joy at this transfer was unbounded. Nothing could be in sharper contrast than the letters he wrote after joining the Tank Corps and those penned during the preceding three months, when the enforced inactivity of the cavalry and the nature of his own routine work preyed on his spirits and made him exclaim with Ulysses:

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to s.h.i.+ne in use, As though to breathe were Life!

_February 13th, 1917._

When I came in from my morning's work yesterday what should I find but a telegram instructing me to report at the earliest possible moment to Headquarters, Heavy M.G.C., for duty on transfer! These things usually come with a rush after one has been kept waiting a long time in suspense. I spent the rest of the day in bringing my accounts and papers up to date, and this morning came across in the motor to my destination. Is it not splendid? My luck has never yet failed to stand me in good stead.

I won't deny, nevertheless, that it was a severe wrench parting from the old Cavalry Division after twenty months of service with it. I had formed many friends.h.i.+ps there, among both officers and men, and it cost me many a pang to bid them good-bye. All partings from old a.s.sociations are hard to bear even when the parting leads up, as in my case, to the fulfilment of one's greatest ambition. My delight knows no bounds at my new appointment. I really am asking myself whether I am awake or not.

It almost seems too good to be true.

I am writing this letter in my new mess which is in a Neissen hut. For the present I remain Lieutenant A.S.C.--till the period of probation is past. But that's no matter, for the acme of my military ambitions is now attained. My new messmates are almost all ex-infantry men, many of whom, most in fact, are here learning their new job. Strangely enough, I am the third Senior Lieutenant in the company, and in point of active service, with my twenty months in France, I stand well in front of almost all of them. The O.C. of the company, stroke of good luck for me, is an old Hussar officer and ex-member of the Cavalry Brigade which I have just quitted. It was a joy to meet him again. I was able to give him a lot of news about his old pals.

All the fellows in the new mess are amazed that I have been without leave since the beginning of May, 1916. I must not set my leave before my work, however. I have already started my new labours. Altogether I am in luck all round. I verily believe I am the luckiest man in the B.E.F. to-day. Congratulate me! You will be interested to know that an old Dulwich boy, Ambrose, to whom I gave 2nd XV Colours in my year of football captaincy, is in the same battalion, but I have not met him yet.

TO HIS BROTHER.

_February 17th, 1917._

I am getting on splendidly. I can't tell you how bucked I am with life. It was my third shot to get out of the "great Department,"

and not only did I succeed in this, but I have obtained that which I had most desired. I had really hardly dared to hope that I should succeed in getting into the Tank Corps. There are a lot of Rugger men among the officers here, including an O.A., Ambrose, who was one of the best of the 2nd XV forwards in 1914.

In our company is a splendid fellow called Hedderwick, who played for Loretto and was tried for Cambridge; and a man called Saillard, who was the Haileybury full-back in that match when they beat us at Haileybury by 32 to 12 in Evans's year. You may recollect Saillard getting laid out in the second half, Haileybury continuing without a full-back--with very sound judgment as it turned out, for this enabled them to play us off our legs in the scrum and control the game with eight forwards to seven, and we never got the ball to give to our eight outsides.

To sum up, I am in most congenial society and enjoying life hugely.

Naturally, I am working pretty hard, learning my new job. I am determined to make good at it, and I have the conviction that, with hard work and concentration, a man with education behind him can succeed in pretty well anything that he likes. Leave may come in the near future, provided the authorities consider I have made sufficient progress in my new studies; but I have a lot to learn, and it is not my desire to go on leave before I have mastered at least the elements of my new job--very much the reverse, in fact.

_February 20th, 1917._

Am having a grand time--up to my eyes in oil, grease and mud from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. I am finding my old hobby of engineering of the greatest value, and my enthusiasm for seeing "the wheels go round" has returned in all its old force. Even the gas-engine and dynamo of famous (or infamous) memory are proving most serviceable to me through the experience I acquired with them--demonstrating again how useful the most _recherche_ of ideas, occupations or hobbies may become. No knowledge is to be despised.

The only fly in the ointment is that an exam. is due for me in a week's time or so--as you know, impending exams. fill me with terror. I have such an accursedly active imagination that I find it impossible to banish from my head the thought, "What if I fail?" I've always been afflicted with this, though I am bound to say that when it came to the point it did not, as far as might be judged by results, affect my actual performances. But I am, nevertheless, in a chronic state of what the B.E.F. calls "wind up" on account of this exam. I am so eager to do well that the mere thought of failing is abhorrent. I am inclined to ascribe these feelings at bottom to egotism.

There is quite a number of South Welshmen in our lot out here, including some men from Llanelly. There are also a lot of Scotsmen among the officers, fellows of broad speech and dry humour to whom I am much drawn.

You haven't hit on a book on some musical subject for me, have you? I would much like a work dealing with Wagner or Beethoven.

It is music that I miss more than anything in the intellectual line. Shall we ever hear the "Ring" again, I wonder? Anyway, it was one of the supreme experiences of my life to have heard it conducted by Nikisch. I regard the "Ring" as one of the world's artistic masterpieces. It is conceived on a scale of unparalleled grandeur, and must be thought of as an organised whole.

I miss the "Proms" and the Sunday Concerts, too--both have done a real national service in popularising the greatest music.

_February 28th, 1917._

In the language of Tommy, I am "in the pink" and getting on first-rate. Am delighted to say I pa.s.sed well in that examination, being marked "very good indeed." I got more than 90 per cent. of marks. I never dared to hope for such success. It would be absurd to deny that I am hugely bucked at the result, but I had had a pretty strenuous training for the exam. I am still engaged in learning, but now in a different department, though of equal interest, and I am glad to say that no examination is involved this time.

Last Sunday we had a real first-rate game of Rugger--not very scientific as far as pa.s.sing and outside play were concerned, but a great struggle forward. My own side had a couple of splendid Scottish forwards against it, and I had a great deal of defence to do, falling on the ball, etc. The final was 6-3 against us, but one glaring offside try was allowed to our opponents--accidentally, of course, as the referee's view was unfortunately obstructed at the time. It was a grand game to play in, though I was not in the best of training--one's first game for fourteen months is usually apt to be a bit of a strain, and I hadn't played since I turned out for the O.A.'s at Dulwich in December, 1915. It was simply great, worth living years for, to touch a Rugger ball again.

_March 17th, 1917._

These days for me are crammed full of work, 8.30 A.M. to 6 or 7 P.M. as a general rule. I am enjoying life hugely, however. To me hard work has always been preferable to slack times, and I like going at high pressure. Besides, this is such a grand job that the work is a sheer pleasure. By Jove! if you only knew how much happier I am these days than in any period during the twenty odd months I had spent previously playing at soldiers in the "Grub Department." It amazes me that I could have been so long contented with work like that of the A.S.C. Well, anyway, those days are over and done with, and a new and brighter era has been ushered in. As a rule, I am now almost always in an incredible state of grease and oil and grime, which, remembering my old propensities, you will know delights me. The old gas-engine at home was nothing to it. I have had to set aside a special suit for daily use, as even with overalls on there is not sufficient protection against grease, oil, petrol and mud. I cannot tell you how supremely happy I am in my work.

Ambrose returned to his company from a course of instruction last week, and he came across immediately to see me. We discussed old times and old friends with great gusto. There are two other Dulwich men in the battalion whom I never knew well, as they were fairly senior fellows when I was only a kid, though I distinctly remember both. Their names are Trimingham and Sewell. They were in what was in those days Treadgold's House.

I am sending back by the same post a pair of spectacles which got broken recently. Will you please get them repaired? I still have four sound pairs, but I always like to keep up the set of five with which I started in the War.

The breaking of the great frost created appalling conditions on this countryside, which for some time was an absolute quagmire.

Even now things are pretty bad, though the weather improves daily.

_March 20th, 1917._

Well, the Boche has retreated on the Somme, as most people antic.i.p.ated he would, though few imagined he would make such a considerable withdrawal. He is a cute customer, of that there is no doubt. He never does a thing without having a reason. Yet there have been occasions in the War when he has entirely misjudged the situation. Take Ypres and Verdun for example. This retirement on the Somme is clever, though it may tell on the morale of his men. On the other hand, the Boche relies, and always has relied, much more on discipline than on morale for keeping his army together. He has never developed _esprit de corps_ as it has been developed in our army, or the French, but there's no denying that his discipline is something pretty considerable. That discipline, as far as can be gauged, has as its foundation a very efficient system of N.C.O.'s. His officers are intelligent, but nothing to write home about, but his N.C.O.'s are unquestionably very good. I have myself witnessed their influence among gangs of prisoners we have taken.

It must necessarily come about in the course of a War that situations arise when _esprit de corps_ is equivalent to, and even produces, discipline. That is where brother Boche fails to rise to the occasion. I am not of those who think the Boche a coward, but undoubtedly an unexpected situation very often plays the very deuce with both his courage and his organisation. In his plans he allows for most possibilities, but he is nonplussed when the situation does not turn out exactly as it should on paper.

Again, man for man, he loses "guts" in tight corners, because of this same lack of initiative. It is perhaps a temperamental failing. There have been moments in this War when only his incapacity to deal with a suddenly-developed situation has stood between him and stupendous success. He has a.s.sumed, let us say, that by all the rules of War the enemy must have reserves available, and has therefore ceased his attack until such time as he could muster his forces to meet the counter-attack by these imagined reserve troops, when actually his enemy had no reserves at all. Conversely, he has a.s.sumed on many occasions that his enemy must, by all the rules of War, be battered into pulp or asphyxiated, and that he has only to advance over the bodies of his foes to win an overwhelming victory; yet somehow or other from out of the indescribable debris and havoc wrought by his artillery or gas, arise survivors who, though half-dead, yet have enough life and pluck to hold him back.