A Student in Arms Part 1

A Student in Arms.

by Donald Hankey.

SOMETHING ABOUT "A STUDENT IN ARMS"

BY H.M.A.H.

"His life was a Romance of the most n.o.ble and beautiful kind." So says one who has known him from childhood, and into how many dull, hard and narrow lives has he not been the first to bring the element of Romance?

He carried it about with him; it breathes through his writings, and this inevitable expression of it gives the saying of one of his friends, that "it is as an artist that we shall miss him most," the more significance.

And does not the artist as well as the poet live forever in his works?

Is not the breath of inspiration that such alone can breathe into the dull clods of their generation bound to be immortal?

Meanwhile, his "Romance" is to be written and his biographer will be one whose good fortune it has been to see much of the "Student" in Bermondsey, the place that was the forcing-house of his development.

In the following pages it is proposed only to give an outline of his life, and particularly the earlier and therefore to the public unknown parts.

Donald Hankey was born at Brighton in 1884; he was the seventh child of his parents, and was welcomed with excitement and delight by a ready-made family of three brothers and two sisters living on his arrival amongst them. He was the youngest of them by seven years, and all had their plans for his education and future, and waited jealously for the time when he should be old enough to be removed from the loving shelter of his mother's arms and be "brought up."

His education did, as a matter of fact, begin at a very early age; for one day, when he was perhaps about three years old, dressed in a white woolly cap and coat, and out for his morning walk, a neighbouring baby stepped across from his nurse's side and with one well-directed blow felled Donald to the ground! Donald was too much astonished and hurt at the sheer injustice of the a.s.sault to dream of retaliation, but when they reached home and his indignant nurse told the story, he was taken aside by his brothers and made to understand that by his failure to resist the a.s.sault, and give the other fellow back as good as he gave, "the honour of the family" was impugned! He was then and there put through a systematic course of "the n.o.ble art of self-defence."

"And I think," said one of his brothers only the other day, "that he was prepared to act upon his instructions should occasion arise."

It will be seen from this incident that his bringing-up was of a decidedly strenuous character and likely to make Donald's outlook on life a serious one!

He was naturally a peace-loving and philosophical little boy, very lovable and attractive with his large clear eyes with their curious distribution of colour--the one entirely blue and the other three parts a decided brown--the big head set proudly on the slender little body, and the radiant illuminating smile, that no one who knew him well at any time of his life can ever forget. It spoke of a light within, "that mysterious light which is of course not physical," as was said by one who met him only once, but was quick to note this characteristic.

Donald's more strenuous times were in the boys' holidays--those tumultuous of seasons so well known to the members of all big families! His eldest brother, Hugh, was bent on making an all-round athlete of him; another brother saw in him an embryo county cricketer, while a third was most particular about his music, giving him lessons on the violoncello with clockwork regularity. The games were terribly thrilling and dangerous, especially when the schoolroom was turned into a miniature battlefield, with opposing armies of tiny lead soldiers. But Donald never turned a hair if Hugh were present, even at the most terrific explosions of gun-powder. His confidence in Hugh was complete. Nor did he mind personal injuries. When on one occasion he was hurled against the sharp edge of a chair, cutting his head open badly, and his mother came to the rescue with indignation, sympathy and bandages, whilst accepting the latter he deprecated the two former, explaining apologetically, "It's only because my head's so big."

He admitted in after years to having felt most terribly swamped by the personalities of two of his brothers. The third he had more in common with, for he was more peace-loving, and he seemed to have more time to listen to the small boy's confidences and stories, which Donald started to write at the age of six.

Hugh, however, was his hero--a kind of demi-G.o.d. And truly there was something Greek about the boy--in his singular beauty of person, coupled with his brilliant mental equipment, and above all in the nothing less than Spartan methods with which, in spite of a highly sensitive temperament, he set himself to overcome his handicap of a naturally delicate physique and a bad head for heights. He turned himself out quite an athlete, and actually cured his bad head by a course of walking on giddy heights, preferably roofs--the parapet of the tall four-storied house the children lived in being a favourite training ground.

Donald was the apple of his eye, and he was quick to note a certain lack of vitality about the little boy--especially when he was growing fast--and a certain natural timidity. His letters from school are full of messages to and instructions concerning Donald's physical training, and from Sandhurst he would long to "run over and see after his boxing." He called him Don Diego, a name that suited the rather stately little fellow, and he used to fear sometimes that Donald was "getting too polite" and say he must "knock it out of him in the holidays." Needless to say, his handling of him was always very gentle.

The other over-vital brother, if a prime amuser, was also a prime tease, and being nearer Donald in age was also much less gentle.

Before very long these great personages took themselves off "zum neuen taten." But their Odysseys came home in the shape of letters, which, with their descriptions of strange countries and peoples and records of adventures--often the realization of boyish dreams--and also of difficulties overcome, were well calculated to appeal to Donald's childish imagination, and to increase his admiration for the writers--and also his feeling of impotence, and of the impossibility of being able to follow in the tracks of such giants among men!

His mother, however, was his never-failing confidante and friend.

His love and admiration for her were unbounded, as for her courage, unselfishness and constant thought for others, more especially for the poor and insignificant among her neighbours. Though the humblest minded of women, she could, when occasion demanded, administer a rebuke with a decision and a fire that must have won the heartfelt admiration of her diffident little son.

He was not easily roused himself, but there is one instance of his being so that is eminently characteristic. He had come back from school evidently very perturbed, and at first his sister could get nothing out of him. But at last he flared up. His face reddened, his eyes burned like coals and, in a voice trembling with rage, he said, "---- (naming a school-fellow) talks about things that I won't even _think_!"

At the age of about 14 he, too, went to Rugby, and there is an interesting prophecy about him by his brother Hugh belonging to this time. Hugh had by now earned a certain right to p.r.o.nounce judgment, having already started to fulfil his early promise by making some mark as a soldier and a linguist. He had been invited to join the Egyptian Army at a critical time in the campaign of 1897-98, thanks to his proficiency in Arabic. His work was cut short by serious illness, the long period of convalescence after which he had utilized in working for and pa.s.sing the Army Interpreter's examination in Turkish as well as the higher one in Arabic and his promotion exam. All of which achievements had been of use in helping him to wring out of the War Office a promise of certain distinguished service in China. In a letter home he writes:--

2ND BATT. THE ROYAL WARWICKs.h.i.+RE, REGT., THE CAMP, COLCHESTER.

28th Sept., 1899.

MY DEAR MAMMA,--

I packed Donald off to school to-day in good time and cold-less.... He was wonderfully calm and collected. He was more at his ease in our mess than I should have been in a strange mess, and made himself agreeable to his neighbours without being forward. Also he looked very clean and smart, and was altogether quite a success.

That child has a future before him if his energy is up to form, which I hope. His philosophy is most amazing. He looks remarkably healthy, and is growing nicely....

Shortly after this letter was written the South African War broke out, and before six months were over the writer was killed in action, at the age of 27, whilst serving with the Mounted Infantry at Paardeberg.

It was the first sorrow of Donald's life, but six months later he was to suffer a yet more crus.h.i.+ng blow in the loss of his dearly loved mother. The loss of his best confidante and his ideal seemed at first to stun the boy completely, and to cast him in upon himself entirely.

Later on he remembered that he had felt at that time that he had nothing to say to any one. He had wondered what the others could have thought of him, and had thought how dreadfully unresponsive they must be finding him. His sister should have been of some use. But she can only think of herself then as of some strange figure, veiled and petrified with grief--grief _not_ for her mother, but for the young hero whose magnetism had thrilled through every moment of her life--yet pointing onwards, with mutely insistent finger, to the path that her hero had trodden. And Donald, dazed also himself by grief--though from another cause--of his own accord, placed his first uncertain steps on the road that leads to military glory. No "voice"

warned him as yet, and he had no other decisive leading.

If his sister failed him then, his father did not. Of him Donald wrote recently to an aunt, "Papa's letters to me are a heritage whose value can never diminish. His was indeed the pen of a ready writer, and in his case, as in the case of many rather reserved people, the pen did more justice to the man than the tongue. I never knew him until Mamma's death, when the weekly letter from him took the place of hers, and never stopped till I came home."

At Rugby, Donald was accounted a dreamer. Without the outlet he had hitherto had for his confidences and his thoughts no doubt the tendency to dream grew upon him. "Behold this dreamer cometh," was actually said of him by one of his masters.

Nevertheless there were happy times when youth a.s.serted itself and boyish friends.h.i.+ps were made. In work he did well, for he entered the sixth form at the early age of 16, and was thereby enabled, though he left young, to have his name painted up "in hall" below those of his three brothers, and also on his "study" door which belonged to each of the four in turn.

He entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, straight from Rugby, and before he was seventeen. We have his word for it that he was spiritually very unhappy there, finding evils with which he was impotent to grapple, going up as he did so young from school and before he had had time to acquire a "games" reputation--that all-important qualification for a boy if he wishes to influence his fellows. Nevertheless youthful spirits were bound to triumph sometimes. He was a perfectly sound and healthy, well-grown boy and a friend who was with him at "the Shop" says he can remember no apparent trace of unhappiness, and is full of tales of his jokes and his fun, his quaint caricatures and doggerel rhymes, his love of flowers and nature, his hospitalities, and his joy in getting his friends to meet and know and like each other. Though he made no mark at Woolwich he did carry off the prize for the best essay on the South African War.

With it he made his first appearance in print, for it was printed in the R.M.A. Magazine. While he was at Woolwich the family circle was enlarged by the arrival of a cousin from Australia, and she and Donald became the greatest of friends. She reminded him in some way of his mother, and this made all the difference.

The Island of Mauritius, to which he was sent at the age of twenty, not so very long after having received his commission in the Royal Garrison Artillery, stood for him later on, he has told us, as "Revelation"--"for there it was that I was first a sceptic, and was first shown that I could not remain one." Also towards the end of his stay there, when he was doubting as to what course he should take, a sentence came to him insistently, "Would you know Christ? Lo, He is working in His vineyard." It was these things that decided him eventually to resign his commission, but of them his letters home make little or no mention. They are full, on the other hand, of descriptions of the beauties of the Island which, curious, odd, freakish and unexpected, held him as did those of no other place. The curious inconsistencies of the Creole nature also interested him, and he spent much of his spare time sketching and studying the people. Two friends.h.i.+ps he made there were diverse and lasting, but he complains very much of feeling the lack of a woman friend--no one to tease and pick flowers for!

While he was still there, there appeared at home a baby nephew--another "Hugh"--"trailing clouds of glory," but to return all too soon to his "Eternal Home." Some years previously, when his eldest sister had told him of her engagement, he congratulated her warmly, and said he "had always longed for a nephew"! He never saw the child, but wrote after his death that he had heard so much about him that he seemed to know him, and "I think I must have played with him in my dreams." Possibly the baby nephew, in his short ten months of life, did more for his uncle than either knew, for no frozen hearts could do otherwise than melt in the presence of the insistent needs of that gallant little spirit and fragile little body, and a more whole-hearted sister was awaiting him on his return home, which took place at the end of two years, after he had fallen a victim to the prevalent complaint in the R.G.A--abscess on the liver. It was caused by the shocking conditions under which the R.G.A. had to live in Mauritius during that hot summer when the Russian Fleet sojourned in Madagascan waters, and in Donald's case it necessitated a severe operation.

His joy in his homecoming was quickly clouded over, for his father died only a month or two after his return; not, however, before he had given a delighted acquiescence to Donald's proposal to resign his commission and go to Oxford in order to study theology--his own favourite pursuit--with the object of eventually taking Holy Orders.

In the spring of 1907 Donald took a trip to Italy with his sister and a Rhodes Scholar cousin from Australia. It was the young men's first visit, and each brought back a special trophy: Donald's, a large photograph of a fine virile "Portrait of a man" by Giorgione in black and white, and his cousin, a sweet Madonna head by Luini.

Donald gave his sister her trophy on their return home, in remembrance of the lectures she had given the two of them on the pre-Raphaelite painters in Florence. It took the form of a water-colour caricature of herself, sitting enthroned in a Loggia as a sort of Sybil Saint with a halo and a book (Baedeker). Behind her, and outlined against a pale sky as seen through an archway of the Loggia in the typical Florentine fas.h.i.+on, are the blue mountains near Florence, some tall cypresses, a campanile and a castle perched on the top of a hill--all features of the landscapes through which they had pa.s.sed together. In the foreground are himself and his cousin as monks adoring, also with haloes, and expressions of mock ecstasy!

On his return Donald went for a few months to Rugby House, the Rugby School Mission, in order to cram for Oxford. He thereby made a friend, and learned to love Browning.

After living so long at Brighton, and then in barracks, the beauty of Oxford was in itself alone a revelation to him. The work there, too, was entirely congenial. As a gunner subaltern he had been a square peg in a round hole. As regards the work there had been far too much to be accepted on authority for one of his fundamental type of mind; the relations existing between an officer and his men--in peace time, at any rate--seemed to him hardly human, and the making of quick decisions, which an officer is continually called upon to do, was then as always very difficult to him. His tastes, too, unusual in a subaltern, had made him rather lonely. He found much more in common with the undergraduate than with the subaltern. Going up as an "oldster" (22) was to him an advantage rather than otherwise, for his six years in the Army had given him a certain prestige which was a help to his natural diffidence, and helped to open more doors to him, so that he was not limited to any set.

He gained some reputation as a host, for he had the born host's gift of getting the right people together and making them feel at their ease. There was also, as a rule, some little individual touch about his entertainments that made them stand out. His manner, though naturally boyish and shy, could be both gay and debonair, quite irresistible in fact, when he was surrounded by congenial spirits! He played hockey, and was made a member of several clubs, sketched and made beautiful photographs. His time he divided strictly between the study of man and the study of theology, and though he did much hard, thorough and careful work in connexion with the latter, he always maintained that for a man who was going to be a parson the former was the more important study of the two.

He used, however, to complain much at this time of feeling himself incapable of any very strong emotion, even that of sorrow.

No doubt there is more stimulation to the brain than to the heart in the highly critical atmosphere of all phases of the intellectual life at Oxford; also Donald had hardly yet got over the shocks of his youth and the loneliness of his life abroad. He was, too, essentially and curiously the son of his father--even to his minor tastes, such as his connoisseur's palate for a good wine and his judgment in "smokes"--and this feeling of a certain detachment from the larger emotions of life was always his father's pose--the philosopher's. In his father's case it was perhaps engendered, if not necessitated, by his poor health and wretched nerves.

But can we not trace his dissatisfaction at this time in what he felt to be his cold philosophical att.i.tude towards life to the same cause as much of the misery he suffered as a boy! In the paper he calls "School," which follows with that ent.i.tled "Home," he tells us how he would have liked to have chastised a school-fellow "had he dared,"

and his failure to dare was evidently what reduced him to the state of impotent rage described on page 9 of this sketch. Again at Woolwich, what made him unhappy was not so much the evils which he saw but his impotence to deal with them. So now again at Oxford he feels "impotent," impotent this time to feel and sympathize as he would have wished with suffering humanity. But within him was the light, "the light which is, of course, not physical," which betrayed itself through his wonderful smile--the same now as in babyhood; and from his mother, and perhaps also from the young country that gave her birth, he had inherited, as well as her great heart and broad human sympathies, the vigour that was to carry him through the experiences by means of which, in the fullness of time, that light, no longer dormant, was to break into a flame of infinite possibilities.

Donald's one complaint against Oxford was that the ideas that are born and generated there so often evaporate in talk and smoke. He left with the determination to "do," but before going on to a Clergy School he decided to accept a friend's invitation to visit him in savage Africa so that he might think things over, and put to the test, far away from the artificialities of Modern Life, the ideas he had a.s.similated in the highly sophisticated atmosphere of Oxford. As he quaintly put it: "Since Paul went into Arabia for three years, I don't see why I should not go to British East Africa for six months!" He did not, however, stay the whole time there, but re-visited his beloved Mauritius, and also stayed in Madagascar.

The beginning of 1911 found him at the Clergy School. But what he wanted he did not find there. During his Oxford vacations he had made many expeditions to poorer London, at first to Notting Dale where was the Rugby School Mission, and afterwards to Bermondsey. But these expeditions had not been entirely satisfactory. He had then gone as a "visitor." The lessons he wanted to learn now from "the People"

could only be learned by becoming as far as possible one of them. The story of his struggles to do so in his life in Bermondsey, and of his journey to Australia in the steerage of a German liner and of his roughing it there, always with the same object in view, cannot be told here. The first outcome of it all was the writing of his book, _The Lord of All Good Life_. Of this book he says, in a letter to his friend Tom Allen of the Oxford and Bermondsey Mission:

"The book I regard as my child. I feel quite absurdly about it; to me it is the sudden vision of what lots of obscure things really meant.

It is coming out of dark shadows into--moonlight ... I would have you to realize that it was written spontaneously in a burst, in six weeks, without any consultation of authorities or any revision to speak of.