The Human Boy and the War
by Eden Phillpotts · English · Gutenberg #41779 · 362,078 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Human Boy and the War
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Human Boy and the War
Author: Eden Phillpotts
Release date: January 4, 2013 [eBook #41779]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41779
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUMAN BOY AND THE WAR ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover]
THE HUMAN BOY
AND THE WAR
BY
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1916
_All rights reserved_
Copyright 1916
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1916
Reprinted October, 1916.
CONTENTS
The Battle of the Sand-Pit
The Mystery of Fortescue
The Countryman of Kant
Travers Minor, Scout
The Hutchings Testimonial
The Fight
Percy Minimus and His Tommy
The Prize Poem
The Revenge
The "Turbot's" Aunt
Cornwallis and Me and Fate
For the Red Cross
The Last of Mitchell
THE HUMAN BOY
AND THE WAR
THE BATTLE OF THE SAND-PIT
After the war had fairly got going, naturally we thought a good deal
about it, and it was explained to us by Fortescue that, behind the
theory of Germany licking us, or us licking Germany, as the case might
be, there were two great psychical ideas. As I was going to be a soldier
myself, the actual fighting interested me most, but the psychical ideas
were also interesting, because Fortescue said that often the cause won
the battle. Therefore it was better to have a good psychical idea
behind you, like us, than a rotten one, like Germany. I always thought
the best men and the best ships and the best brains and the most money
were simply bound to come out top in the long run; but Fortescue said
that a bad psychical idea behind these things often wrecks the whole
show. And so I asked him if we had got a good psychical idea behind us,
and he said we had a champion one, whereas the Germans were trusting to
a perfectly deadly psychical idea, which was bound to have wrecked them
in any case--even if they'd had twenty million men instead of ten.
So that was all right, though, no doubt, the Germans think their idea of
being top dog of the whole world is really finer than ours, which is
"Live and let live." And, as I pointed out to Fortescue, no doubt if we
had such a fearfully fine opinion of ourselves as the Germans have, then
we also should want to be top dog of the world.
And Fortescue said:--
"That's just it, Travers major. Thanks to our sane policy of respecting
the rights of all men, and never setting ourselves up as the only nation
that counts, we do count--first and foremost; but if we'd gone out into
the whole earth and bawled that we were going to make it Anglo-Saxon,
then we should have been laughed at, as the Germans are now; and we
should dismally have failed as colonists, just as they have."
So, of course, I saw all he meant by his psychical idea, and no doubt it
was a jolly fine thought; and most, though not all, of the Sixth saw it
also. But the Fifth saw it less, and the Fourth didn't see it at all.
The Fourth were, in fact, rather an earthy lot about this time, and they
seemed to have a foggy sort of notion that might is right; or, if it
isn't, it generally comes out right, which to the minds of the Fourth
amounted to the same thing.
The war naturally had a large effect upon us, and according as we looked
at the war, so you could judge of our opinions in general. I and my
brother, Travers minor, and Briggs and Saunders--though Briggs and
Travers minor were themselves in the Lower Fourth--were interested in
the strategy and higher command. We foretold what was going to happen
next, and were sometimes quite right; whereas chaps like Abbott and
Blades and Mitchell and Pegram and Rice were only interested in the
brutal part, and the bloodshed and the grim particulars about the
enemy's trenches after a sortie, and so on.
In time, curiously enough, there got to be two war parties in the
school. Of course they both wanted England to win, but we took a higher
line about it, and looked on to the end, and argued about the division
of the spoil, and the general improvement of Europe, and the new map,
and the advancement of better ideas, and so on; while Rice and Pegram
and such-like took the "horrible slaughter" line, and rejoiced to hear
of parties surrounded, and Uhlans who had been eating hay for a week
before they were captured, and the decks of battleships just before they
sank, and such-like necessary but very unfortunate things.
I said to Mitchell--
"It may interest you to know that real soldiers never talk about the
hideous side of war; and it would be a good deal more classy if you
chaps tried to understand the meaning of it all, instead of wallowing in
the dreadful details."
And Mitchell answered--
"The details bring it home to us and make us see red."
And I replied to Mitchell--
"What the dickens d'you want to see red for?"
And he said--
"Everybody ought to at a time like this."
Of course, with such ignorance you can't argue, any more than you could
with Rice, when he swore that he'd give up his home and family gladly in
exchange for the heavenly joy of putting a bayonet through a German
officer. It wasn't the spirit of war, and I told him so, and he called
me "von Travers," and said that as I was going to be a soldier, he
hoped, for the sake of the United Kingdom in general, there would be no
war while I was in command of anybody.
Gradually there got to be a bit of feeling in the air, and we gave out
that we stood for tactics and strategy and brain-power, and Rice and his
lot gave out that they stood for hacking their way through. And as for
strategy, they had the cheek to say that, if it came to actual battle,
the Fourth would back its strategy against the Sixth every time. It was
a sort of challenge, in fact, and rested chiefly on their complete
ignorance of what strategy really meant.
When I asked Mitchell who were the strategists of the Fourth, he gave it
away by saying--
"Me and Pegram."
Well, he and Pegram were merely cunning--nothing more. Mitchell was a
good mathematician, and in money matters he excelled on a low plane;
while Pegram was admitted to be a master in the art of cribbing, but no
other. His bent of mind had been attracted to the subject of cribbing
from the first, and while I hated him, and knew that he could never come
to much good, I was bound to admit the stories told about his cribbing
exploits showed great ingenuity combined with nerve. By a bitter irony,
theology was his best subject, but only thanks to the possession of a
Bible one inch square. He had found it when doing Christmas shopping
with his aunt, who was his only relation, owing to his being an orphan,
and when he asked her to buy it for him as one of his Christmas
presents, she did so with pleasure and surprise, little dreaming of what
was passing in his mind. I never saw the book, nor wished to see it,
but Briggs, who did, told me it contained everything, only in such
frightfully small print that you wanted a magnifying glass to read it.
Needless to say, Pegram had the magnifying glass. And, thus armed, he
naturally did Scripture papers second to none. He also manipulated a
catapult for the benefit of his friends in the Lower Fourth, of whom he
had a great many, and with this instrument, such was his delicacy of
aim, he could send answers to questions in an examination through the
air to other chaps, in the shape of paper pillets. He could also hurl
insults in this way, or, in fact, anything. Once he actually fired his
Bible across three rows of forms to Abbott. It flew through the air and
fell at Abbott's feet, who instantly put one on it. But Brown, who was
the master in command on the occasion, looked up at the critical moment
and saw a strange object passing through the air. Only he failed to
mark it down.
"What was that?" said Brown to Rice, who sat three chaps off Abbott.
"A moth, I think, sir," said Rice.
"Extraordinary time for a moth to be flying," said Brown.
"Very, sir," said Rice.
"Don't let it occur again, anyway," said Brown, who never investigated
anything, but always ordered that it shouldn't occur again.
"No, sir," said Rice.
Then Abbott bent down to scratch his ankle, and all was well.
And this Pegram was supposed to have strategy as good as ours!
I never thought a real chance of a conflict would come, but it actually
did in a most unexpected manner just before the holidays. The weather
turned cold for a week, and then, after about three frosts, we had a big
snow, and in about a day and a night there was nearly a foot of it.
And, walking through the West Wood with Blades, I pointed out that the
sand-pit, under the edge of the fir trees, would be a very fine spot for
a battle on a small scale.
I said--
"If one army was above the sand-pit, and another army was down here,
trying to storm the position, there would be an opportunity for a
remarkably good fight and plenty of strategy; and if I led the Fifth and
Sixth against the sand-pit, or if I defended the sand-pit against
attacks by the Upper and Lower Fourth, the result would be very
interesting."
And Blades agreed with me. He said he believed that it would give the
Upper and Lower Fourth frightful pleasure to have a battle, and he was
certain they would be exceedingly pleased at the idea. In fact, he went
off at once to find Pegram and, if possible, Rice and Mitchell. The
school was taking a walk that afternoon, as the football ground was
eight inches under snow; and some were digging in the snow for eating
chestnuts, of which a good many were to be found in West Wood, and
others were scattered about. So Blades went to find Mitchell, Rice, and
Pegram, and I considered the situation. The edge of the sand-pit was
about eight feet high, and a frontal attack would have been very
difficult, if not impossible; but there was an approach on the left--a
gradual slope, fairly easy--and another on the right, rather difficult,
as it consisted of loose stones and tree roots. On the whole, I thought
I would rather defend than attack; but as, if anything came of it, I
should be the challenger, I felt it would be more sporting to let the
foe choose.
Then Rice and Mitchell came back with Blades, and they said that nothing
would give them greater pleasure than a fight. They had heard my idea,
and thought exceedingly well of it. They examined the spot and
pretended to consider strategy, but, of course, they knew nothing about
the possibilities of defence and attack. What they really wanted to
know was how many troops they would have, and how many we should. We
counted up and found that in the Fifth and Sixth, leaving out about four
who were useless, and Perkins, who would have been valuable, but was
crocked at footer for the moment, we should number thirty-one, while the
Upper and Lower Fourth would have thirty-eight. I agreed to that, and
Rice made the rather good suggestion that we should each have ten kids
behind the fighting line to make ammunition. And I said I hoped there
would be no stones in the snowballs, and Mitchell said the Fourth didn't
consist of Germans, and I might be sure they would fight as fair as we
did, if not fairer.
So it was settled for the next Saturday, and Brown and Fortescue
consented to umpire the battle, and Fortescue showed great interest in
it.
There were a good many preliminaries to decide, and I asked Mitchell
what chap was to be general-in-chief for the Fourth, and, much to my
surprise, he said that Pegram was. And, still more to my surprise, he
said that Pegram wished to attack and not defend. This alone showed how
little they knew about strategy; but I only said "All right," and
Mitchell actually said that Pegram backed the Fourth to take the
sand-pit inside an hour! And I said that pride generally went before a
fall. Then I saw Pegram--which was at a meeting of the
commanders-in-chief--and we arranged all the details. He asked about the
fallen, and I said that nobody would fall; but he said he thought some
very likely would; and he also said that it would be more like the real
thing and more a reward for strategy if, when anybody was fairly bowled
over in the battle and prevented from continuing without a rest, that
that soldier was considered as a casualty and taken to the rear. This
was pretty good for Pegram; but as our superior position on the top of
the sand-pit was bound to make our fire more severe than his, and put
more of his men out of action, I pointed that out. But he said that if
I thought our fire would be more severe than his, I was much mistaken.
He said the volume of his fire would be greater, which was true. So I
let him have his way, and we each selected ten kids for the ammunition.
Travers minor didn't much like fighting against me, but, of course, he
had to, though it was rather typical of Mitchell and Pegram that they
were very suspicious of him before the battle, and wouldn't tell him any
of the strategy, or give him a command in their army, for fear of his
being a traitor. And they felt the same to Briggs, though, of course,
Briggs and Travers minor were really just as keen about victory for the
Fourth as anybody else in it. And the only reason why my brother didn't
like fighting against me was that, with my strategy, he felt pretty sure
I must win.
The generals--Pegram and I--visited the battlefield twice more, and
arranged where the wounded were to lie and where the umpires were to
stand, in comparative safety behind a tree on the right wing; but, of
course, we didn't discuss tactics or say a word about our battle plans.
The fight was to last one hour, and if at the end of that time we still
held the sand-pit, we were the victors. And for half an hour before the
battle began, we were to make ammunition and pile snow and do what we
liked to increase the chances of victory.
I, of course, led the Fifth and Sixth, and under me I had Saunders, as
general of the Sixth, and Norris, as general of the Fifth. As for the
enemy, Pegram was generalissimo, to use his own word, and Rice and
Abbott and Mitchell and Blades were his captains. It got jolly
interesting just before the battle, and everybody was frightfully keen,
and the kids who were not doing orderly and red-cross work, were allowed
to stand on a slight hill fifty yards from the sand-pit and watch the
struggle.
And on the morning of the great day, happening to meet Rice and
Mitchell, I asked them what was the psychical idea behind the attack of
the Fourth; and Rice said his psychical idea was to give the Sixth about
the worst time it had ever had; and Mitchell said his psychical idea was
to make the Sixth wish it had never been born. They meant it, too, for
there was a lot of bitter feeling against us, and I realised that we
were in for a real battle, though there could only be one end, of
course. They had thirty-eight fighters to our thirty-one, and they had
rather the best of the weight and size; but in the Sixth we had Forbes
and Forrester, both of the first eleven and hard chuckers; and we had
three other hard chuckers and first eleven men in the Fifth, besides
Williams, who was the champion long-distance cricket ball thrower in the
school.
We had all practised a good deal, and also instructed the kids in the
art of making snowballs hard and solid. The general feeling with us was
that we had the brains and the strategy, while the Fourth had rather the
heavier metal, but would not apply it so well as us. When a man fell,
the ambulance, in the shape of two red-cross kids, was to conduct him to
a place safe from fire in the rear; and when he was being taken from the
firing-line, he was not to be fired at, but the battle was to go on,
though the red-cross kids were to be respected. I should like to draw a
diagram of the field, like the diagrams in the newspapers, but that I
cannot do. I can, however, explain that, when the great moment arrived,
I manned the top of the sand-pit with my army, and during the half hour
of preparation threw up a wall of snow all along the front of the
sand-pit nearly three feet high. And along this wall I arranged the
Fifth, led by Norris, on the right wing. Five men, commanded by
Saunders, specially guarded the incline on the left, which was our weak
spot, and the remaining ten men, all from the Sixth, took up a position
five yards to the rear and above the front line, in such a position that
they could drop curtain fire freely over the Fifth. I, being the Grand
Staff, took up a position on the right wing on a small elevation above
the army, from which I could see the battle in every particular; and
Thwaites, of the Sixth, who was too small and weak to be of any use in
the fighting lines, was my adjutant to run messages and take any
necessary orders to the wings.
As for the enemy, they made no entrenchments or anything of the kind,
though they watched our dispositions with a great deal of interest.
Pegram studied the incline on our wing, and evidently had some ideas
about a frontal attack also, which would certainly mean ruin for him if
he tried it, as it would have been impossible to rush the sand-pit from
the front. They made an enormous amount of ammunition, and as they
piled it within thirty yards of our parapet, they evidently meant to
come to close quarters from the first. I was pleased to observe this.
They arranged their line rather well, in a crescent converging upon our
wings; but there was no rearguard and no reserve, so it was clear
everybody was going into action at once. The officers were
distinguished by wearing white footer shirts, which made them far too
conspicuous objects, and it was clear that Pegram was not going to
regard himself as a Grand Staff, but just fight with the rest. Needless
to say, I was prepared to do the same, and throw myself into the
thickest of it if the battle needed me and things got critical. But I
felt, somehow, from the first that we were impregnable.
Well, the battle began by Fortescue blowing a referee's football
whistle, and instantly the strategy of the enemy was made apparent.
They opened a terrific fire, and their one idea evidently was to
annihilate the Sixth. They ignored the Fifth, but poured their entire
fire upon the Sixth; and a special firing-party of about six or seven
chosen shots, or sharpshooters, poured their entire fire on me, where I
stood alone. About ten snowballs hit me the moment Fortescue's whistle
went, and the position at once became untenable and also dangerous. So I
retired to the Sixth, and sent word to the Fifth by Thwaites to very
much increase the rapidity of their fire. Which they did; and Pegram
appealed that I was out of action, but Fortescue said I was not.
It was exceedingly like the Great War in a way, and the Fourth evidently
felt to the Fifth and Sixth what the Germans felt to the French and
English. They merely hated the Fifth, but they fairly loathed the
Sixth, and wanted to put them all out of action in the first five
minutes of the battle. Needless to say, they failed; but we lost
Saunders, who somehow caught it so hot, guarding the slope, that he got
winded and his nose began to bleed at the same moment, which was a
weakness of his, brought on suddenly by a snowball at rather close
range. So he fell, and the red-cross kids took him out of danger. This
infuriated us, and, keeping our nerve well, we concentrated our fire on
Mitchell, who had come far too close after the success with Saunders. A
fair avalanche of snowballs battered him, and he went down; and though
he got up instantly, it was only to fall again. And Fortescue gave him
out, and he was conducted to a ruined cowshed, where the enemy's
ambulance stood in the rear of their lines.
I had already ordered the Sixth to take open formation and scatter
through the Fifth; and this undoubtedly saved them, for though we lost
my aide-de-camp, Thwaites, who was no fighter and nearly fainted, and
was jolly glad to be numbered with those out of action, for some time
afterwards we lost nobody, and held our own with ease. Once or twice I
took a hand, but it wasn't necessary, and when we fairly settled to
work, we made them see they couldn't live within fifteen yards of us.
They made several rushes, however, but, by a happy strategy, I always
directed our fire on the individual when he came in, and thus got two
out of action, including Rice. He was a great fighter, and I was
surprised he threw up the sponge so soon; but after a regular battering
and blinding, he said he'd "got it in the neck," and fell and was put
out with one eye bunged. Travers minor also fell, rather to my regret;
and what struck me was that, considering all their brag, the Fourth were
not such good plucked ones when it came to the business of real war, as
we were. It made a difference finishing off Rice, for he had fought
well, and his fire was very accurate, as several of us knew to our cost.
I felt now that if we could concentrate on Pegram and Blades, who were
firing magnificently, the battle would be practically over. But Blades,
owing to his great powers, could do execution and still keep out of
range. He was, in fact, their seventeen-inch gun, you might say; and
though Williams on our side could throw further, he proved in action
rather feeble and not a born fighter by any means. As for Pegram, he
always seemed to be behind somebody else, which, knowing his character,
you would have expected. At last, however, he led a storming party to
the slope, and, leaving the bulk of my forces to guard the front, I led
seven to stem his attack. For the first time since the beginning of the
battle, it was hand-to-hand; but we had the advantage of position, and
were never in real danger. I had the great satisfaction of hurling
Pegram over the slope into his own lines, and he fell on his shoulder
and went down and out. He was led away holding his elbow and also
limping; but his loss did not knock the fight out of the Fourth, though
in the same charge they lost Preston and we nearly lost Bassett. But he
got his second wind and was saved to us, though only for a time, for
Blades, who had a private hate of Bassett, came close and scorned the
fire, and got three hard ones in on Bassett from three yards; and
Fortescue had to say Bassett was done. Blades, however, was also done,
and there was a brief armistice while they were taken away.
We now suddenly concentrated on Mitchell, who was tiring and had got
into range. I think he was fed up with the battle, for, after a feeble
return, he went down when about ten well-directed snowballs took him
simultaneously on the face and chest, and then he chucked it and went to
the ambulance. At the same moment one of their chaps, called
Sutherland, did for Norris. Norris had been getting giddy for some
time, and he also feared that he was frost-bitten, and when Sutherland,
creeping right under him, got him well between the eyes with a hard one,
he was fairly blinded, though very sorry to join our casualties. I had
a touch of cramp at the same moment, but it passed off.
We'd had about half an hour now, and five of the ammunition kids were
out of action with frozen hands. Then we got one more of the enemy, in
the shape of Sutherland, and their _moral_ ought to have begun to get
bad; but it did not. Though all their leaders were now down, they stuck
it well, while we simply held them with ease, and repelled two more
attempts on the slope. In fact, Williams wanted to go down and make a
sortie, and get a few more out of action; but this I would not permit
for another five minutes, though during those exciting moments we
prepared for the sortie, and knocked out Abbott, who, much to my
surprise, had fought magnificently and covered himself with glory,
though lame. On their side they got MacAndrew, owing to an accident.
In fact, he slipped over the edge of the sand-pit, and was taken
prisoner before he could get back, and we were sorry to lose him, not so
much for his own sake, as because his capture bucked up the Fourth to
make fresh efforts.
And then came the critical moment of the battle, and a most unexpected
thing happened.
With victory in our grasp, and a decimated opposition, a frightful
surprise occurred, and the most unsporting thing was done by the Fourth
that you could find in the gory annals of war.
It was really all over, bar victory, and we were rearranging ourselves
under a very much weakened fire, when we heard a shout in the woods
behind us, and the shout was evidently a signal. For the whole of the
Fourth still in action made one simultaneous rush for the slope, and of
course we concentrated to fling them back. But then, with a wild
shriek, there suddenly burst upon us from the rear the whole of their
casualties!
Mitchell and Rice and Pegram came first, followed by Travers minor and
Preston and Blades and Sutherland and Abbott. They had rested and
refreshed themselves with two lemons and other commissariat, and then,
taking a circuitous track from behind their ambulance, had got exactly
behind us through the wood. And now, uttering the yells that the
regular Tommies always utter when charging, they were on us with
frightful impetus, just while we were repelling the frontal attack on
the slope, and before we had time to divide to meet them. In fact, they
threw the whole weight of a very fine charge on to us and fairly mowed
us down. There was about a minute of real fighting on the slope, and
blood flowed freely. We got back into the fort, so to say; but the
advancing Fourth came back, too, and the casualties took us in the rear.
Then, unfortunately for us, I was hurled over the sand-pit, and three
chaps--all defenders--came on top of me, and half the snow-bank we had
built came on top of them. With the snowbank gone, it was all up. I
tried fearfully hard to get back, but of course the Fourth had guarded
the slope when they took it, and in about two minutes from the time I
fell out of our ruined fortifications, all was over. In fact, the
Fourth was now on the top of the sand-pit and the shattered Fifth and
Sixth were down below. One by one our men were flung, or fell, over,
and then Fortescue advanced from cover with Brown and blew his whistle,
and the battle was done.
We appealed; but Pegram said all was fair in war, and Fortescue upheld
him; and in a moment of rage I told Pegram and Mitchell they had behaved
like dirty Germans, and Mitchell said they might, or they might not, but
war was war, anyway. And he also said that the first thing to do in the
case of a battle is to win it. And if you win, then what the losers say
about your manners and tactics doesn't matter a button, because the rest
of civilisation will instantly come over to your side.
And Blades said the Sixth had still a bit to learn about strategy,
apparently, and Pegram--showing what he was to a beaten foe--offered to
give me some tips!
Mind you, I'm not pretending we were not beaten, because we were; and
the victors fought quite as well as we did; but I shall always say that,
with another referee than Fortescue, they might have lost on a foul. No
doubt they thought it was magnificent, but it certainly wasn't war--at
least, not what I call war.
We challenged them to a return battle the next Saturday, and Pegram
said, as a rule, you don't have return battles in warfare, but that he
should be delighted to lick us again, with other strategies, of which he
still had dozens at his disposal. Only Pegram feared the snow would
unfortunately all be gone by next Saturday; and the wretched chap was
quite right--it had.
Mitchell, by the way, got congestion of his lungs two days after the
battle, showing how sickness always follows warfare sooner or later.
But he recovered without difficulty.
THE MYSTERY OF FORTESCUE
My name is Abbott, and I came to Merivale two years ago. I have got one
leg an inch and three-quarters shorter than the other, but I make
nothing of it. A nurse dropped me on a fender when I was just born,
owing to a mouse suddenly running across her foot. It was more a
misfortune than anything, and my mother forgave her freely. When I was
old enough I also forgave her. In fact, I only mention it to explain
why I am not going into the Army. All Abbotts do so, and it will be
almost a record my going into something else.
Many chaps have no fighting spirit, and, as a rule, it is not strong in
schoolmasters; yet when the call came for men, three out of our five
answered it and went. Two, who were well up in the Terriers, got
commissions, and the other enlisted, so we were only left with Brown,
who can't see further than a pink-eyed rat and isn't five foot three in
his socks, though in his high-heeled boots he may be, and Fortescue.
You will say this must have had a pretty bright side for us, and, at
first sight, no doubt it looks hopeful. In fact, we took a very
cheerful view of it, because you can do what you like with Brown, and
Fortescue only teaches the Fifth and Sixth.
On the day that Hutchings cleared out to join the Army, and we were only
left with Fortescue, Brown, and the Doctor, we were confronted with
serious news. In fact, after chapel on that day, we heard, much to our
anxiety, that old Dunston himself was going to fill the breach.
Those were his very words. He talked with a sort of ghastly funniness
and used military terms.
He said--
"Now that our valued and honoured friends, Mr. Hutchings, Mr. Manwaring,
and Mr. Meadows have answered their nation's call, with a loyalty to
King and Country inevitable in men who know the demands as well as the
privileges of Empire, it behoves us, as we can and how we can, to fill
their places. This, then, in my contribution to the Great War. I shall
fight in no foreign trenches, but labour here, sleeplessly if need be,
and undertake willingly, proudly, the arduous task that they have left
behind. I shall confront no cannon, but I shall face the Lower School.
Henceforth, after that amalgamation of class and class which will be
necessary, you may count upon your head master to answer the trumpet
call and fill the breach. But I do not disguise from myself that such
labours must prove no sinecure, and I trust the least, as well as the
greatest, to do their part and aid me with good sense and intelligence."
Well, there it was; and we saw in a moment that you can't escape the
horrors of war, even though you are on an island with the Grand Fleet
between you and the foe.
When it came to the point, the Doctor was fairly friendly, but there was
always something about him that was awful and solemn and very depressing
to the mind. You could crib easily enough with him, for he had a much
more trustful disposition than Hutchings, or Brown, or Fortescue, and
was also short-sighted at near range; but the general feeling with the
Doctor was a sense of weariness and undoubted relief when it was over.
It was as near like being in church as anything could be.
Beginning at the beginning of subjects bored him. In fact, he often
found, when he went back to the very start of a lesson, he'd forgotten
it himself, moving for so many years on only the higher walks of
learning; and then, finding that he had forgotten some footling trifle
on the first page of a primer, he became abstracted and lost heart about
it, and seemed more inclined to think than to talk.
Another very curious habit he had was to start on one thing--say
Latin--and then drift off into something else--say geography. Or he
might begin with algebra and then something would remind him of the
procession of the equinoxes, or the nebula in Orion, and he would soar
from earth and wander among the heavenly bodies until the class was
over. And if he happened to be very much interested himself, he
wouldn't let it be over; and then we had to sit on hearing the Doctor
maundering about double stars, or comets perhaps, while everybody else
was in the playground.
I think he got rather sick of the Lower School after about a month of
it, and Fortescue took over a good many of the classes in his normal
style, which was more business-like than the Doctor and more punctual in
its working. Fortescue was cold and hadn't much use for us in school or
out, but he was just, and we liked him pretty well until the mystery
began. Then we gradually got to dislike him, and then despise him, and
then hate him.
He was rather out of the common in a way, being an Honourable and
related to the famous family of Fortescue, which has shone a good deal
in history off and on. And, of course, when the war broke out, we
naturally expected that the Honourable Howard Fortescue would seize the
opportunity to shine also, which he could not do as an undermaster at
Merivale. He was a big, fine man, six feet high, with a red complexion
and a Roman nose. Certainly, he did not play games, but he was all right
in other ways, and had been a lawn-tennis player of the first-class in
past times at Oxford, and, in fact, got his half-blue for playing at
that sport against Cambridge.
So it seemed to us pretty low down that he didn't join Kitchener's Army.
As a matter of fact, he didn't even try to. He was a very sublime sort
of man and not what you might call friendly to us, yet if anybody
appealed to him in any sort of way, he generally thawed a bit and
responded in quite a kind manner.
We argued a good deal about him, and Travers major said it was natural
pride, because, being of the family of Fortescue, he knew there was a
gulf fixed between him and us. And Travers did not blame him, and more
did I, or Briggs. But Rice, who is Irish, and who had got sent up on
the report of Fortescue for saying, as he thought, something
disrespectful about the British Army, hated Fortescue with a deadly
hatred. Which was natural, because Fortescue had misunderstood, and
Rice had really said nothing against the Army, but against Protestants,
which, being a Roman Catholic himself, was merely his point of view and
no business of Fortescue's.
And when Fortescue wouldn't become a soldier, Rice left no stone
unturned, as they say, to worry him about it. At that time Milly
Dunston, the Doctor's youngest daughter, had just come back from a
school where she had been finished, and Rice's sister was at the same
school, so she took notice of Rice. And it soon turned out that Milly
Dunston also hated Fortescue. I believe he had snubbed her in some way
over English literature, at which Fortescue was said to be a flyer, but
Milly Dunston was not. She had, in fact, praised a novel to him, and he
had laughed and told her it was quite worthless, and advised her to read
some novels by people she had never heard of. And then he had slighted
the school where she had finished, and so, when Rice explained that
Fortescue was a coward and preferred the comparative comfort of Merivale
to the manly business of going to Salisbury Plain and living in mud and
becoming useful to the Empire, Milly Dunston quite agreed with Rice, and
said something ought to be done about it.
We helped because we thought the same. In fact, everybody seemed to be
of one opinion, and little by little Fortescue began to see signs of
great unpopularity growing up against him.
At first he ignored these signs, being evidently unprepared to take what
you might call a delicate sort of hint. For instance, he smoked a pipe
and kept a Japanese vase on the mantelpiece of his study full of black
crows' feathers, which he was in the habit of picking up on Merivale
Heath, where he often went for lonely walks. With these feathers he
cleaned out the stem of his pipe.
Well, Milly Dunston bought a white fowl for the Doctor's dinner, and
told the man at the shop to send it without plucking the feathers off.
Which he did do, and she got them and gave them to Rice, who dexterously
took away Fortescue's black feathers and substituted the white ones.
But Fortescue went on just as though he hadn't noticed it, and when
Saunders was with Fortescue, having his special coaching lesson for a
Civil Service exam., he said that Fortescue took a white feather and
cleaned his pipe with it as though quite indifferent to the colour.
Then Milly Dunston got a ball of knitting wool and four knitting
needles, for all of which she paid herself, and Rice once more did the
necessary strategy and arranged them on Fortescue's desk, where his eyes
would fall upon them on returning to his study. But they merely
disappeared, and Fortescue gave no sign.
Then Travers major started a very interesting theory on the subject, and
he said there must be some reason far deeper than mere cowardice behind
the mystery of Fortescue. He said that it was impossible for a
Fortescue to be a coward in the common or garden sense of funking
danger, but he admitted that he might be a coward in some other way,
such as not liking discipline, or living in a tent, or wearing
uncomfortable clothes, or getting up early to the sound of a bugle. And
Briggs said that he thought perhaps Fortescue was keeping a widowed
mother and sisters, or an old aunt, or some such person by his exertions
at Merivale, in which case, of course, he couldn't go. But Rice didn't
see why not, even if it was so; and more did I, because the Government
gives full compensation for women relations in general; but Briggs said
I had got it all wrong, and that if Fortescue had an aunt, she wouldn't
gain a penny by his going to the war, however old and poor she was. In
fact, he believed that only a wife who was going to have a baby got
anything at all, owing to the great need for keeping up the race.
Then Rice said that it didn't make any difference to his deadly feeling
against Fortescue, and he also said that he was going on rubbing it into
Fortescue, and leaving no stone unturned to make his life a burden to
him until he enlisted; and Travers major said that Rice was feeling the
instinct of pure revenge, and Rice said he might be, but that was what
he intended to do. Anyway, he was sure the War Office and Admiralty
didn't care a button about aunts.
Then we divided into two factions on the subject of Fortescue, and one
faction decided to leave him to his conscience and mind its own
business, which wasn't driving Fortescue to war; while the other side
took the opposite course, and decided to work at Fortescue with the
utmost ingenuity until in sheer despair he was driven to do his duty.
And Briggs and Travers major and Travers minor and Saunders and Hopwood
abandoned the pursuit, so to say; while I and Rice and a chap called
Mitchell, all ably assisted by Milly Dunston, continued in our great
attempt to wake Fortescue to the call of his country and storm his
lines, as Rice said.
As for Mitchell, he came into it rather curiously, and it shows how an
utter accident will sometimes reveal anybody in their true colours, and
surprise other people, who thought they knew them and yet didn't.
Mitchell was a mere rabbit in character and nothing in learning. And,
in fact, he only had one feature besides his nose, and that was his love
for money. Money, you might say, was his god, and his financial
operations in the matter of loans to the kids were a study in
themselves. But over Fortescue he came out in a most unexpected manner,
and much to our surprise, made up a bit of poetry about him! Which
shows nothing happens but the unexpected, and nobody was more astonished
in a sort of way than Mitchell himself, because he never knew he could
do it.
How to use the poem to the best purpose was a question that Milly
solved. She typed it by night on her own typewriter, and then directed
Rice, at the first opportunity, to put it on Fortescue's desk when his
study was empty. And he did so, and this is what Fortescue found
awaiting him when he returned:
"You ask us lots of questions
And we answer if we can,
And now we'll jolly well ask you one.
You call yourself a man,
Then why on earth don't you enlist
And try to do your share
Where the 'Black Marias' bellow
And the shrapnel's in the air?
And if you will not tell us why,
Then we'll tell you instead.
It's just because you funk it
And would hate to be shot dead.
In other words, in fact in one,
Most Honourable Howard,
Though of the race of Fortescue,
You are a bally coward!"
We didn't much envy Fortescue his feelings when he read these stirring
lines, and in fact, I, in my hopefulness, believed they would actually
win our object and start Fortescue on the path of duty and rouse him
from his lethargical attitude to the war; but, strange to say, they went
off him like water off a duck's back. Not a muscle moved, so to speak,
or if it did nobody saw it do so. He went on his way for all the world
as if civilisation was not in its death throes. And then Rice--to show
you what Rice still felt about it--offered Mitchell a week's
pocket-money if he would write yet another poem of even a more fiery and
stinging character. And Mitchell gladly agreed, and took enormous
trouble and burnt the midnight oil, as the saying is, and produced
certainly a poem full of rhymes and great abuse of Fortescue, yet not
nearly such a fine poem as the first. And Rice said it wasn't up to the
mark and wouldn't pay for it, and Mitchell said it was a contract and
written on commission and must be paid for by law. But Rice knew no law
and he showed the poem to Travers major, who instantly tore it up and
kicked Mitchell next time he met him and told him he was a dirty little
cad.
So Mitchell cooled off to Rice, and, in fact, his next poem was actually
about Rice--not written to order, but for pure hate of Rice--and it was
undoubtedly a bitter and powerful poem; but Rice, being far stronger
than Mitchell, made him eat it and swallow it in front of his class,
though it was written in red ink. And Mitchell said if he died, Rice
would be hung. But he felt no ill effects, though he rather hoped he
would.
At this season, however, a far greater and more splendid poem than any
Mitchell could do had appeared in England. In fact, it was set to music
and England rang with it--also Ireland. At least, so Rice said, because
his mother had told him so in a letter. There was a special mention of
Ireland in it, and Rice's mother told him that it had made more recruits
in Ireland than Mr. Redmond and Sir Edward Carson put together.
Rice never does anything by halves, and he actually learnt the poem by
heart, and also found out the tune somehow and sang it when possible.
Once, in fact, he woke up in the night singing it from force of habit,
as the saying is, and his prefect, who happened to be Mactaggert, said
there was a time for everything, and threatened to report Rice if he did
it again.
I asked Rice why he had made such a great effort and learnt anything he
wasn't obliged to learn, and he said, firstly, because it was the
grandest poem he had ever heard, and, secondly, because he had a great
idea some day to sing it to Fortescue, as it applied specially to him by
dwelling on the fearfulness of hanging back when the Empire cried out
for you.
The poem said the Empire was calling to every one of her sons of low and
high degree, and so, of course, it was also calling to Fortescue; and
Rice thought that as it was pretty certain Fortescue wouldn't read it,
and, no doubt, fought shy of patriotic poetry in general just now, he
meant to wait for some happy opportunity when Fortescue was not in a
position to get out of earshot and sing it to him.
But the opportunity did not come, so Rice adopted the former plan of
leaving the poem in Fortescue's room. He had plenty of printed copies
of the words, because the poem, after first appearing in a London
newspaper of great renown, had been copied, at the special wish of the
author, into hundreds and thousands of other papers; and to show you the
tremendous liking people had for it, even the _Merivale Weekly Trumpet_
printed it and Milly Dunston found it there.
She, by the way, had another pretty bitter cut at Fortescue, which cost
more money, and she told Rice she had paid five shillings and sixpence
for her great insult. In fact, she sent Fortescue a shawl and a cap,
such as is worn by aged women, with red, white, and blue ribbons in it.
Which, of course, meant that Fortescue was an old woman himself. It was
frightfully deadly if you understood it, and Rice said that only a girl
could have thought of such a cruel thing.
The parcel was sent by post, but once more we were doomed to
disappointment, as they say, for nothing came of it except slight
advantage to the matron in Fortescue's house. In fact, he gave her the
five shilling shawl, but the cap we never saw again, and doubtless it
was burnt to a cinder in Fortescue's fire.
Then Rice tried the patriotic poem, and so as there should be no mistake
he covered the back of it with paste, and in this manner fastened it
very firmly to the looking-glass, just behind the spot where Fortescue
kept his pipes on the mantelpiece.
We didn't hope much from it, and expected he would merely scrape it off
and take it lying down in his usual cowardly manner. But imagine our
immense surprise when we found he had sneaked to the Doctor! And even
that was nothing compared to the extraordinary confession that he had
made to the Doctor. And it all came out, and, as Mitchell said, a bolt
from the blue fell on him and me and Rice.
After stating the facts of the case, which were that Mr. Fortescue had
been from the beginning of the term subject to a great deal of annoyance
from boys, who laboured under the offensive delusion that he ought to go
to the Front, the Doctor said--
"It is my honoured friend, Mr. Fortescue's wish that I inform you of the
circumstances which prevent an action which he would have been the first
to take did his physical welfare permit of it. But unhappily he suffers
from an enlarged aorta and it is impossible for him to take his place in
our line of defences, though that impossibility has caused him the
sorrow of his life. It happens, however, that Nature has blessed Mr.
Fortescue with abundant gifts while denying him his health, and in the
pages of that work of reference known as 'Who's Who'--pages that I fear
few among you will ever adorn--may be found the distinguished name of
the Honourable Howard Fortescue in connection with notable achievements.
For Mr. Fortescue is a votary of the Muses. Already he has two volumes
of verse to his credit and three works of fiction; while in a subsequent
edition of the volume, it will doubtless be recorded that he was the
author of a certain admirable poem which has recently stirred the United
Kingdom to its depths and sent more young men to the enlisting stations
than any other inspiration of the time. But it was, it seems, left for
one of my pupils to combine idiocy with insolence and affix a copy of
his own immortal composition to Mr. Fortescue's looking-glass! This was
positively the last straw, and my esteemed colleague who, up to the
present time has allowed his sense of humour to ignore your insufferable
impertinences, felt that it was bad for yourselves to proceed further
upon so perilous a path. Very rightly, therefore, he called my
attention to a persecution I should have thought impossible within these
walls. He has no desire to give me the names of the culprits, and it is
well for them that he has not; but having placed the whole circumstances
in my hands, I cannot permit the outrage to pass without recording my
abhorrence and shame. I may further remind you that Wednesday next is
our half-term whole holiday, and if before that date no private and
abject apology is committed to the hands of Mr. Fortescue by those who
have disgraced themselves and put this affront upon him--if that is not
done, and if I do not hear from him that he is thoroughly satisfied with
the nature of that expression of regret, then there will be no half-term
whole holiday and righteous and guilty alike will suffer."
Needless to say this tremendous speech made a very great impression on
me and Rice and Mitchell. Milly Dunston did not hear it, but it made a
great impression on her too, when she heard the facts, and we felt, in a
way, that she was a good deal to blame, because she could easily have
looked up "Who's Who," being free of the Doctor's library, which we were
not.
Of course, there was no difficulty about the apology, which I wrote with
help from Mitchell; but, showing what girls are, though she had invented
most of the things we did to Fortescue, she calmly refused to sign the
apology and said she should apologise personally to him. No doubt she
didn't, and Rice chucked her afterwards.
Rice was the most cut up. He said he should never feel the same again
after being such a simple beast, and he changed over from hating
Fortescue to thinking him the most wonderful and splendid man in the
world, and far the best poet after Shakespeare. And to show how
frightfully Rice feels things and the rash way he goes on, I can only
tell you that when we signed the apology, he cut himself on his arm,
just above the wrist, and got two drops of blood and signed with them.
And after his name he wrote the grim words "his blood," so that
Fortescue shouldn't think it was merely red ink.
The apology went like this:
We, the undersigned members of the Lower Fourth form of Merivale beg to
express our great regret for having tried to make the Honourable Howard
Fortescue go to the Front. We freely confess we ought not to have done
so and that we were much deluded. We utterly did not know that he had
got an aorta, and we are very sorry that he has, and we hope that he
will soon recover from it. And we beg to say that we think his poem the
best poem we have ever read and also better than Virgil. And we hope
that he will overlook it on this occasion and are willing to do anything
he may decide upon to show the extent of our great regret.
(Signed) RUPERT MITCHELL,
PATRICK RICE (his blood),
ARTHUR ABBOTT.
But nothing came of it. The Honourable Fortescue went on his way quite
unmoved and treated us just as usual, without any sign of forgiveness or
otherwise. And whether he ever reported our names to Dunston or not, we
never knew. But I don't think he did. At any rate, he must have said
the apology was enough; which it certainly was. And the end justified
the means, as they say, because the whole holiday at half-term passed
off as usual.
THE COUNTRYMAN OF KANT
Dr. Dunston had a way of introducing a new chap to the school after
prayers. The natural instinct of a new chap, of course, is to slide in
quietly and slowly settle down, first in his class and then in the
school; but old Dunston doesn't allow this. When a new boy turns up, he
jaws over him, and prophesies about him, and says we shall all like him,
and so on; and if the new chap's father is anybody, which he sometimes
happens to be, then Dunston lets us know it. The result is that he
generally puts everybody off a new chap from the first; but the Fifth
and Sixth allow for this. As Travers major pointed out, it's a rum
instinct of human nature to hate anything you are ordered to like, and
to scoff at anything you are ordered to admire; so, thanks to Travers,
who is frightfully clever in his way, and, in fact, going to Woolwich
next term, we always allowed for the Doctor's great hope about a new
boy, and didn't let it put us off him. As a matter of fact, Dunston
often withdrew the praise afterwards, and we noticed, for some queer
reason, that if a boy had a celebrated father, he always turned out to
be the sort that Dunston hated most; and often and often, when he had to
rag or flog that sort of boy, the Doctor fairly wept to think what the
boy's celebrated father would say if he could see him now.
When Jacob Wundt came to Merivale, Dunston just went the limit about
him; and it was all the more footling because Wundt grinned, and
evidently highly approved of what was said about him. He was the first
German the Doctor had ever had for a pupil, I believe--anyway, the first
in living memory--so, perhaps, naturally he got a bit above himself
about it; and Wundt got a bit above himself, too.
"In Jacob Wundt we embrace one from the Hamlet among nations," began Dr.
Dunston. "In Jacob Wundt we welcome the countryman of Kant and
Schiller, the contemporary of Eucken and Harnack! Moreover, Colonel von
Wundt, his esteemed parent, occupies a position of some importance in
the Fatherland, and has done no small part to perfect the magnificent
army that great nation is known to possess."
Well, we looked at Jacob Wundt, and saw one of the short, fat sort, with
puddingy limbs and yellowish hair close-cropped, and a fighting sort of
head. He looked straight at you, but he never looked at anybody as
though he liked them, and we jolly soon found he didn't.
As to Dr. Dunston's German heroes, we only knew one name, and that was
Schiller; but as the Fifth and Sixth happened to be swotting "The
Robbers" for an exam., and as "The Robbers" happens to be a ripping good
thing in its way, we were not disinclined to be friendly to Wundt, as
far as the Fifth and Sixth can be friendly to a new boy low in the
school.
We soon found that Wundt was very un-English in his ideas, also in his
manners and customs. He could talk English well enough to explain what
he meant, and we soon found that he thought a jolly sight too well of
Germany and a jolly sight too badly of England. At first we thought he
had been sent to Merivale to make him larger-minded, so that he could go
back and make other Germans more larger-minded, too. But he said it was
nothing of the kind. He hadn't come to England to learn our ways--which
were beastly, in his opinion--but to get perfect in our language, which
might be useful to him when he became a soldier.
He was very peculiar, and did things I never knew a boy do before. And
the most remarkable thing he did was always to be looking on ahead to
when he was grown up. Of course, everybody knows they're going to grow
up, and some chaps are even keen about it in a sort of way, but very few
worry about it like Wundt did. I said to him once--
"What the dickens are you always wanting time to pass for, so that you
may be grown up? I can tell you it isn't all beer and skittles being a
man. At any rate, I've often heard my father say he wishes he was young
again."
"He may," answered Wundt. "You've told me your father was an
'International' and a 'Blue,' and no doubt he'd like to excel at
football again. But I despise games, and I've got very good reasons for
wanting to grow up, which are private."
Of course, he didn't put it in such good English as that, but that was
the sense of it.
He wasn't what you call a success generally, for he didn't like work,
except history; and he hated our history, and there wasn't much doing at
Merivale in the matter of German history. But he took to English well,
and would always talk it if he could get anybody to listen, which wasn't
often. He said it was all rot about English being a difficult language.
He thought it easy and feeble at best. All his people could speak
it--in fact, everybody in Germany could, when it suited them to do so.
As for games, he had no use for them; but he was sporting in his own
way. His favourite sport consisted in going out of bounds; and he
showed very decent strategy in doing so, and gave even Norris and Booth
a tip or two. Norris and Booth had made a fair art of trespassing in
private game preserves, at the Manor House and other such places round
about Merivale. In fact, game preserves were just common or garden
Sunday walks to them. But they had been caught by a gamekeeper once and
both flogged; and Wundt showed them how a reverse like that need never
have happened. He could turn his coat inside out, and do other things
of that sort, which were very deceptive even to the trained gamekeeper
eye; and, finding a scarecrow in a turnip field, he took it, and as it
consisted of trousers and coat and an old billycock hat, Wundt was now
in possession of a complete disguise. He hid the things in a secret
haunt, that really belonged to Norris and Booth; and they liked him at
first and helped him a good deal; but finally they quarrelled with him,
because he said England was a swine's hole, and told them that a time
was coming--he hoped not till he grew up--when England would simply be a
Protectorate of Germany, whatever that is. So they invited him to fight
whichever he liked of them, and when he refused, though just the right
weight, they smacked his head and dared him to go to their secret cave
again.
When they smacked his head, his eyes glittered and he smiled, but
nothing more. He never would fight with fists, because he said only
apes and Englishmen fought with Nature's weapons. But at single-stick
he was exceedingly good, and, in fact, better than anybody in the school
but Forrester. He much wished we could use swords and slash each other's
faces, as he hoped to do when he became a student in his own country,
and he said it was a mean sight to see old Dunston and Brown and
Manwaring and Hutchings and the other masters all without a scratch. He
said in Germany every self-respecting man of the reigning classes was
gashed to the bone; and decent people wouldn't know a man who wasn't,
because he was sure to be a shopkeeper or some low class thing like
that. As to games, he held them in great contempt. It seems people of
any class in Germany only play one game and that's the war
game--_Kriegspiel_, he called it.
I said: "What the deuce is the good of always playing the war game if
you're not going to war?"
And he said: "_Ach!_"
It was a favourite word of his, and he used it in all sorts of ways with
all sorts of expressions. Forbes, who, like me, had a kind of interest
in Wundt that almost amounted to friendship, asked him if women played
the war game, and he said he didn't know what they played except the
piano. All women were worms, in his opinion. Of course, he gassed about
everything German, and said that, from science and art and music to
matchboxes and sausages, his country was first and the rest nowhere. He
joined our school cadet corps eagerly, and became an officer of some
sort in a month; but he was fearfully pitying about it, and said that
English ways of drilling were enough to make a cat laugh, or words to
that effect. After he became an officer, he put on fearful side, though
as just one of the rank and file he'd been quite humble; and then, when
he ordered Saunders, who wasn't an officer, to do something out of drill
hours, and Saunders told him to do it himself, he turned white and
dashed at Saunders, who, of course, licked him on the spot and made his
nose bleed. He was properly mad about that, and said that if it had
happened in Germany, Saunders would have been shot; but as it happened
in England, of course Saunders wasn't. Travers major tried to explain
to Wundt that we weren't real soldiers, and that, when not with the
cadet corps, he was no better than anybody else, but he couldn't see
this. He said that in his country if you were once an officer, you were
always an officer, and that there was a gulf fixed between the men and
their officers; and he called Saunders "cannon fodder" to Batson; and
when Batson told Saunders, Saunders made Wundt carry him on his back up
to the gym., and there licked him again and made his nose bleed once
more, much to his wrath.
On the whole, owing to his ideas, which he wouldn't keep to himself,
Wundt didn't have too good a time at Merivale. He couldn't understand
us, and said we were slackers and rotters, and that our mercenary army
was no good, and that Germany was the greatest country in the world, and
we'd live to know it--perhaps sooner than we thought. Travers major
tried hard to explain to him how it was, but he couldn't or wouldn't
understand.
Travers said: "It's like this. Germany takes herself too seriously and
other countries not seriously enough. An Englishman is always saying
his own country is going to the dogs, and his Army's rotten, and his
Navy only a lot of old sardine tins that ought to be scrapped, and all
that sort of thing. That's his way, and when you bally Germans hear us
talk like that, you go and believe it, and don't understand it's our
national character to run ourselves down. And you chaps always go to
the other extreme and brag about your army, and your guns, and your
discipline, and your genius, and all the rest of it; and, of course, we
don't believe you in the least, because gas like that carries its own
reward, and nobody in the world could be so much better than all the
rest of the world as you think you are. And if you imagine, because we
run ourselves down, we would let anybody else dare to run us down,
you're wrong. And if you think our free army is frightened of your
slave army, and would mind taking you on, ten to one, on land or sea,
you're also wrong."
It was a prophecy in a way, though Travers little knew it, for the war
broke out next holidays, and when we went back to school, it was in full
swing. And so, naturally, was Wundt. He wasn't going home for the vac.
in any case, but stopping at Merivale, and he had done so. He told me
the Doctor had talked some piffle to him about the duties of
non-combatants; but, as Wundt truly said, every German in the world is a
combatant in time of war, and if you can't do one thing, you must try
and do another. In fact, old Dunston little knew the German character,
and when he found it out, he was a good bit astonished, not to say hurt.
He, however, discovered it jolly quickly, and I did first of all,
because, owing to being rather interested in human nature, I encouraged
Wundt in a sort of way, and let him talk to me, and tried to see things
from his point of view, as far as I could--that is, without doing
anything unsporting to England. The great point was to keep your temper
with Wundt; and, of course, most chaps couldn't, because he was so
beastly sure he was right--at least, his nation was. But I didn't mind
all that humbug, and found, by being patient with him, that, under all
this flare-up, he was what you might call deadly keen on his blessed
Fatherland. He fairly panted with patriotism, and in these moments,
quite ignored my feelings.
"Now you know why I wanted to grow up," he said to me. "I hoped this
wouldn't have happened till I could be in it. But it will be all over
and your country a thing of the past before I'm sixteen--worse luck!"
As he was going to be sixteen in October, that was a bit hopeful of
Wundt. His father or somebody had stuffed him up that Germany was being
sat on by the world, and couldn't stand it much longer; and after the
war began, he honestly believed that it was the end of England, and, in
a way, he was more decent than ever he'd been before. When we came back
at the end of the holidays, Wundt welcomed me in a very queer sort of
manner. Somebody had treated me just the same in the past, and, after
trying for a week to think who it was, I remembered it was my Uncle
Samuel, after I'd lost my mother. Wundt evidently felt sorry for all of
us in general and for me in particular as his special friend.
"Of course," he said, "I can't pretend I didn't want it to happen; but
you won't see it is for the good of the world that your country's got to
go down. And so I'm sorry for you, if anything."
"Do you really think it has got to go down?" I asked Wundt, and he said
it wasn't so much what he thought as what was bound to take place.
"Either England's got to go, or else Germany," he said, "and as the
Teuton is the world-power for religion and culture and everything that
really matters, and also miles strongest, England's naturally got to go.
You've had your turn; now it's ours. The Kaiser speaks, Germany listens
and obeys."
Booth asked him what day the Germans would be at Merivale, and if he'd
got a plan of campaign marked out; and he said about the half-term
holiday, or earlier, they would come. And Booth said that would mean a
short term, anyway, which had its bright side.
Then Tracey, who is awful sarcastic, though it doesn't generally come
off, asked Wundt how he had arrived at this idea, and Wundt said from
reading papers that his father had sent him via Holland.
"Your papers are chockful of lies," he said. "If you want the truth,
those of you who can read German can see it in my papers."
Of course, some of the Sixth could read German, and they borrowed his
papers, and were much surprised that Wundt really believed such absolute
rot against the evidence of our papers. But he was simply blind, and
went so far as to say that he'd sooner believe the pettiest little
German rag than all our swaggerest papers, let alone the _Merivale
Weekly Trumpet_, which was fearfully warlike, because the editor had a
son who was training for the Front.
But most of all, Wundt hated _Punch_, and, finding this out, we used to
slip the cartoons into his desk, and put them under his pillow, and
arrange them elsewhere where he must find them. These made him fairly
foam at the mouth, and he said he hoped the first thing the Germans
would do, when they got to London, would be to go to _Punch_ and put the
men who drew the pictures and made the jokes to the sword.
No doubt it was because they were so jolly true.
The masters were very decent to Wundt, especially Fortescue, who saw how
trying it must be for him, living in an enemy's country; and when Wundt
told me in secret that he felt his position was becoming unbearable, and
that he had written and asked if he could be exchanged for a prisoner,
or something. He said in a gloomy sort of voice: "I may tell you I
haven't wasted my time here, and perhaps some day Doctor Dunston and you
chaps will know it to your cost."
Well, though friendly enough to Wundt, I didn't much like that, and told
my own special chum, Manwaring, what he'd said; and Manwaring told me
that in his opinion Wundt ought to be neutralised immediately. But I
knew enough of Wundt to feel certain he could never be properly
neutralised, because he had told me that once a German always a German,
and that he'd rather be a dead German than a living King of England, and
that if he had to stop in England for a million years, he'd still be as
German as ever, if not more so. And he'd also fairly shaken with pride
because he'd read somewhere that the Kaiser had said that he would give
any doctor a hundred thousand marks if he would draw every drop of
English blood out of his veins. And when he said it, Tracey had
answered that if the Kaiser came over to England, there were plenty of
doctors who would oblige him for half the money.
But now I thought, without any unkind feeling to Wundt, that I ought to
tell Travers major, as head of the school, of his dark threats; and I
did; and Travers thanked me and said I was quite right to tell him,
because war is war, and you never know.
Of course, if Wundt was going to turn out to be a spy, it wasn't
possible for me to be his friend, and I told him so. And he saw that.
He said he was sorry, if anything, to lose my friendship, but he should
always do all that he considered right in the service of his country,
and he couldn't let me stand between him and his duty. Which amounted
to admitting that he was a spy, or, at any rate, was trying to be one;
for, of course, at Merivale a spy was no more use than he would have
been at the North Pole. There was simply nothing to spy about, except
the photographs of new girls on Brown's mantelpiece.
Then Travers made a move, and he was sorry to do it; but he was going to
be a soldier, just as much as Wundt was, and though he never jawed about
Woolwich like Wundt did about Potsdam, yet he was quite as military at
heart; and though he didn't wear the English colours inside his
waistcoat lining, like Wundt wore the German colours, as he admitted to
me in a friendly moment, yet Travers felt just as keen about England as
Wundt did about Germany, and quite as cast down when we heard about Mons
as Wundt was when he heard about the retreat on the Marne. He
pretended, of course, it was only strategy, but he knew jolly well it
wasn't.
Then Travers major reluctantly decided that, with a spy, certain things
must be done. He didn't like doing them, but they had to be done. And
the first thing was to prove it.
"You can only prove a chap is a spy by spying yourself," Travers said,
and well knowing the peculiar skill of Norris and Booth, he told them to
keep a careful lookout on Wundt and report anything suspicious; which
they did do, because it was work to which they were well suited by their
natures, and they soon reported that Wundt went long walks out of
bounds, and evidently avoided people as much as possible. Once they
surprised him making notes, and when he saw Booth coming, he tore them
up.
Then Travers major did a strong thing, and ordered that the box of Wundt
should be searched. I happened to know that Wundt was very keen to get a
letter off by post, which he said was important, yet hesitated to send
for fear of accidents; and that decided Travers.
So it was done, quite openly and without subterfuge, as they say,
because we just took the key from Wundt by force and told him we were
going to do it, and then did it. He protested very violently, but the
protest, as Travers said, was not sustained.
And we found his box contained fearfully incriminating matter, for he
had a one-barrelled breech-loading pistol in it, with a box of
ammunition, of which we had never heard until that moment, and a
complete map on a huge scale of Merivale and the country round. It was
a wonderful map, and how he had made it, and nobody ever seen it, was
extraordinary. At least, so it seemed, till we remembered that he had
been here through the holidays on his own. There were numbers in red
ink all over the map, and remarks carefully written in German; and
though it is impossible to give you any idea of the map, which was
beautifully drawn and about three yards square, if not more, yet I can
reproduce the military remarks upon it, which Travers translated into
English.
They went like this, and showed in rather a painful way what Wundt
really was at heart. And it showed what Germany was, too; and no doubt
thousands of other Germans all over the United Kingdom had been doing
the same thing, and still are.
After the first shock of being discovered, I honestly believe he was
pleased to be seen in his true colours, and gloried in his crime.
These were the notes in cold blood, as you may say:--
1. _A wood. Good cover for guns. In the middle is a spring where a
gamekeeper's wife gets water. It might easily be poisoned._
2. _A large number of fields. Some have potatoes in them and some have
turnips._
3. _A village with fifty or sixty houses and about two hundred and
thirty-five inhabitants, mostly women and children. Presents no
difficulties._
4. _A church with a tower. A very good place for wireless or light
gun. The pews inside would be good for wounded. Cover for infantry in
the churchyard._
5. _A stream with one bridge, which might easily be blown up; but it
would not be necessary, as the stream is only six feet across, and you
could easily walk over it. Too small for pontoons. Small fish in it._
6. _A large field which was planted with corn, but is now empty. A
good place for aeroplanes to land. Can't find out where corn is gone._
7. _A railroad with one line that goes up to main line. Could easily
be destroyed, but might have strategic value._
8. _A hill where guns could be placed that would cover advance of
troops on Merivale._
9. _The school. This stands on rising ground a mile from the hill, No.
8, and could easily be destroyed by field-guns. Or it could easily be
used as a hospital. It contains a hundred beds, and the chapel could
easily hold a hundred more. There is a garden and a fountain of good
water. Also a well in the house. The playing-field is a quarter of a
mile off. Tents could easily be put up there for troops._
10. _A village schoolroom three hundred yards from the church. It has
been turned into a hospital for casualties. There are thirteen or
fourteen nurses of the Red Cross waiting for wounded soldiers to arrive.
They are amateurs, but have passed some sort of examination. The
wounded are said to be coming. This place could easily be shelled from
the hill marked No. 8._
11. _A forest full of game, and in the middle of it a park and the
Manor House, belonging to a man called Sir Neville Carew. He has great
wealth, and the mansion could easily be looted, and then either used for
officers or burned down._
12. _A farm rich in sheep and cattle and chickens, also turkeys. It
would present no difficulties._
13. _The sea. This is distant ten miles from here, and there is an
unfortified bay, which looks deep. We went there for a holiday last
summer, and some of us went out in a boat. I pretended to fish and
tried to take soundings, but regret to report that I failed. However,
the water was quite deep enough for small battle-craft. The cliffs are
red and made of hard rock. There are about twenty fishing-boats, and a
coastguard station on top; but I saw no wireless. There is a
semaphore._
14. _A medical doctor's house with a garage. Would present no
difficulties. I saw petrol tins in the yard._
That was all, and Travers at once decided to hand the map and the pistol
and cartridges to Doctor Dunston.
"I'm very unwilling to do it," he said, "but this is a bit too thick
altogether. It is pure, unadulterated spying of the most blackguard
sort. And if I had anything to do with it, I should fine Wundt every
penny he's got and imprison him for six months and then deport him."
So he took the evidence of guilt to Dunston, and, of course, Dunston had
the day of his life over them. Some of the masters considered it funny,
and I believe Peacock, who translated the map for Dunston, thought it
was rather fine of Wundt; but old Dunston didn't think it was funny, or
fine, either. He had the whole school in chapel, and hung up the map on
a blackboard, and waved the pistol first in one hand and then the other,
and talked as only he can talk when he's fairly roused by a great
occasion.
I believe what hurt him most was Wundt saying it would be so jolly easy
to knock out Merivale; and to hear Wundt explaining how the school could
be shelled fairly made old Dunston get on his hind legs. In his great
moments he always quotes Shakespeare, and he did now. He said he wasn't
going to have a serpent sting him twice, anyway. He also said it was
enough to make Kant and Goethe turn in their graves; and, that for all
he could see, they had expended their genius in vain, so far as their
native land was concerned. And then he went on.
"Needless to say, Jacob Wundt, you are technically expelled. I say
'technically,' because, until I have communicated with your unfortunate
father, it is impossible literally to expel you. To be expelled, a boy
must be expelled from somewhere to somewhere, and for the moment there
is nowhere that I know of to where you can be expelled. But rest
assured that a way shall be found at the earliest opportunity. Indeed,
it may be my duty to hand you over to the military authorities, and,
should that be the case, I shall not hesitate. For the present you are
interned."
Wundt merely said "_Ach!_" but he said it in such a fearfully
contemptuous tone of voice that the Doctor flogged him then and there;
and Travers major thought Wundt ought not to have been flogged by
rights, but treated as a prisoner of war, or else shot--he didn't seem
to be sure which.
And as for Wundt, he evidently thought the Belgian atrocities were a
fool to his being flogged; and he got so properly wicked that the Doctor
had him locked up all night, with nothing but bread and water to eat,
and the gardener to guard him.
Then a good many chaps began to be sorry for Wundt; but their sorrow was
wasted, for the very next day Dunston heard from his father that Wundt
could go home through Holland, with two other German boys who were being
looked after by the American Ambassador, or some such pot in London. So
he went, and after he had gone, Fortescue asked the Doctor if he might
have Wundt's map, as a psychological curiosity, or some such thing, and
Dunston said he had burned the map to cinders, and seemed a good deal
pained with Fortescue for wanting to treasure such an outrage.
Wundt promised to write to me when he left; but he never did, and,
perhaps, if it's true that German boys of sixteen go to the Front, he
may be there now. And if he is, and if his side wins, and if Wundt is
with the Germans when they come to Merivale, I know the first thing
he'll do will be to slay old Dunston, and the second thing he'll do will
be to slay Saunders.
But in the meantime, of course, there is a pretty rosy chance he may get
slain himself. Not that he'd mind, if he knew his side was on top and
going to conquer. Only, perish the thought, as they say.
TRAVERS MINOR, SCOUT
Before the fearful war with Germany began, Dr. Dunston was not very keen
about us joining the Boy Scouts on half-holidays. He liked better for
us to play games; and if you didn't play games, he liked you to go out
with Brown to botanize in the hedges. It was a choice of evils to me
and Travers minor, because we hated games and we fairly loathed
botanizing with Brown. Unluckily for us, he was the Forum master of the
Lower Fourth, and so we had more than enough of him in school, without
seeing him pull weeds to pieces on half-holidays and talk about the
wonders of Nature. For that matter, he was about the wonderfullest
wonder of Nature himself, if he'd only known it.
But after the War began, old Dunston quite changed his attitude to the
Boy Scouts, and, in some ways, that was the best thing that ever
happened for me and Travers minor, though in other ways it was not.
I'm called Briggs, and Travers minor and I came the same term and
chummed from the first. We had the same opinions about most things, and
agreed about hating games and preferring a more solitary life; but we
were very different in many respects, for Travers minor was going to be
a clergyman, and I had no ideas of that sort, my father being a stock
broker in the "Brighton A" market. Travers minor was more excitable than
Travers major, though quite as keen about England, and after being
divided for some time between the Navy and the Church, he rather
cleverly combined the two professions, and determined to be the chaplain
of a battleship. His enthusiasm for England was very remarkable, and
after a time, though I had never been the least enthusiastic about
England before, yet, owing to the pressure of Travers minor, I got to
be. Nothing like he was, of course. He used to fairly tremble about
England, and once, when an Irish boy, who didn't know Home Rule had been
passed, said he'd just as soon blow his nose on the Union Jack as his
handkerchief--which was rot, seeing he never had one--young Travers flew
at him like a tiger from a bow, and knocked him down and hammered the
back of his head on the floor of the chapel. As soon as he had
recovered from his great surprise, the Irish boy--Rice he was
called--got up and licked Travers minor pretty badly, which he could
easily do, being cock of the Lower School; but, all the same, Rice
respected Travers, for doing what he did, and when he heard that Home
Rule was passed, he said that altered the case, and never cheeked the
English flag again.
Then Dunston changed towards the Boy Scouts, and said such of us as
liked might join them; and about twenty did. We were allowed to hunt
about in couples on half-holidays; and the rule for a Boy Scout is
always to be on the look-out to justify his existence when scouting, and
to assist people, and help the halt and the lame, and tell people the
way if they want to know it, and buck about generally, and, if possible,
never stop a bit of scouting till he's done a good action of some kind
to somebody. Of course, we had to do our good actions in bounds, and
Travers minor often pointed out, as a rather curious thing, that over
and over again there were chances to do good actions if we'd gone out of
bounds--sometimes even over a hedge into a field.
But he generally found something useful to do, and I generally didn't.
The good action that occurred oftenest was to give pennies to tramps,
but Travers did not support this. He said:
"I dare say you've noticed, Briggs, that all these chaps who ask us for
money have got starving families at home. Well, if it's true, they
ought to be at home looking after them. But it isn't true. As a rule,
they spend the money on beer. And when you ask them why they haven't
enlisted, they all say they're too short, or too tall, or haven't got
any back teeth, or something."
We were scouting the day Travers minor pointed this out, and that was
the very afternoon that we met the best tramp of the lot. I should have
believed him myself and tried to help him; but Travers, strangely
enough, is much kinder to animals and dumb creatures in general than he
is to men, especially tramps, and it took a very clever tramp to make
him believe him. But this one did.
He was old and grizzled and grey, and his moustache was yellow with
tobacco. He was sitting rolling a cigarette in the hedge, and as we
passed together in uniform with our scout poles, he got up and saluted
us with a military salute.
"What a bit of luck!" he said. "You're just the chaps I'm on the
look-out for."
Travers stopped and so did I.
"D'you want anything, my good man?" said Travers.
"Yes, I do. I want a sharp Boy Scout to listen to me. I'm telling
secrets, mind you; but you're in the Service just as much as I am, and I
can trust you."
"What Service?" asked Travers minor. "What Service are you in?"
"The Secret Service," said the tramp. "I dare say you think I'm only a
badgering old loafer, and not worth the price of the boots on my feet.
Far from it. I'm Sir Baden-Powell's brother! That's why I was glad to
see you boys come along."
"I don't believe it," said Travers.
"Quite right not to," answered the old man. "That is, till I explain.
As you know, the country's fairly crawling with German spies at present,
and it takes a pretty good chap to smell them out. That's my game. I've
run down thirty-two during the last month, and I'm on the track of a lot
more; but to keep up my character of an old tramp, I dress like this;
and then they don't suspect me, and I just meet 'em in pubs and stand
'em drinks, and tip 'em a bit of their lingo and pretend I'm German,
too."
I was a good deal impressed by this, and so was Travers minor.
"I've been standing drinks to a doubtful customer only this morning, and
spent my last half-crown doing it," went on the great Baden-Powell's
brother. "That's why I stopped you boys. I'm a good way from my base
for the moment, and I shall be obliged if you can lend me half a
sovereign, or whatever you've got on you, till to-morrow. If you let me
have your address, you shall get it by midday; and I'll mention your
names to 'B.-P.' next time we meet."
Travers minor looked at the spy in a spellbound sort of way.
"It's a wonderful disguise," he said.
"Not one of my best, though," answered the man. "I never look the same
two days running. Very likely to-morrow I shall be a smart young
officer; and then, again, I may look like a farmer, or a clergyman, or
anything. It's part of my work to be a master of the art of disguises."
Travers minor began to whisper to me, and asked me how much money I had.
Then the great spy spoke again.
"I might give you boys a job next Saturday afternoon, but you'll have to
be pretty smart to do it. I'm taking a German then. I've marked him
down at Little Mudborough--you know, a mile from Merivale--and on
Saturday next, at 'The Wool Pack' public-house, I meet him and arrest
him. I shall want a bit of help, I dare say."
Travers fairly trembled with excitement after that. Then he felt in his
pocket and found he'd only got a shilling, and this he gave to the spy
without a thought; but I happened to have five shillings by an
extraordinary fluke, it being my birthday, and Brown had changed a
postal order from my mother; so I was not nearly so keen about the spy
as Travers minor. Travers was a good deal relieved to hear I'd got as
much, and even then apologised that we could only produce six bob
between us.
The spy seemed rather disappointed, and I made a feeble effort to keep
my five shillings by saying:
"Couldn't you get to the police-station? They'd be sure to have tons of
money there."
But at the mention of a police-station he showed the utmost annoyance,
combined with contempt. He said: "What's your name?"
And I said: "Briggs."
"Well, Briggs," he said, "let me tell you, if there's one thing the
Secret Service hates and despises more than another, it's a
police-station; and if there's one bigger fool on earth than another,
it's a policeman. It would very likely be death to my whole career as a
spy, if I went to a policeman and told him who I was."
"Don't you ever work with them, Mr. Baden-Powell?" asked Travers; and he
said:
"Never, if I can help it."
So he had the six bob, much to my regret, and told us to be at "The Wool
Pack" public-house at Mudborough on the following Saturday afternoon.
He asked what would be the most convenient time for us to be there, and
we said half-past three, and he said "Good!"
Then Travers asked rather a smart question and said--
"How shall we know you?"
And the spy said:
"I shall be disguised as a farmer, in gaiters and the sort of clothes
farmers go to market in on Saturdays; and I shall be in the bar with
other men. And one of these men will be a very dangerous German secret
agent, who has a 'wireless' at his house. And when we've got him, we
shall go to his house and destroy the 'wireless.' And now you'd better
be getting on, or people will think it suspicious. And you shall have
your money again next Saturday."
So we left him, and the six shillings with him, and I was by no means so
pleased and excited about it as Travers minor. Still, I was excited in
a way, and hoped the following Saturday would be glorious; and Travers
said it would undoubtedly be the greatest day we had spent up to that
time.
We had gone two hundred yards, and were wondering what the German would
look like, and if he'd make a fight, when we were much startled by a man
who suddenly jumped out of the hedge and stopped us.
It was a policeman in a very excited frame of mind.
"What did that bloke up the road say to you?" he began; and Travers
minor, remembering what contempt the great spy had for policemen, was
rather haughty.
"Our conversation was private," he answered, and the policeman seemed
inclined to laugh.
"I know what your conversation was, very well," he answered. "Soapy
William wouldn't tire himself talking to you kids for fun. Did you give
him any money?"
In this insolent way the policeman dared to talk of Baden-Powell's
brother!
"His name is not Soapy William," answered Travers, who had turned red
with anger, "and he's got no use for policemen, anyway."
"No, you take your dying oath he hasn't," said the policeman. "If he
told you that, he's broke the record and told you the truth. Did you
give him money, or only a fag?'
"We lent him money for a private purpose, and I'll thank you to let us
pass," said Travers minor.
But the policeman wouldn't.
"He's as slippery as an eel," he said, "and I've been waiting to cop him
red-'anded for a fortnight. So now you'd better come and overtake him,
for he's lame and can only crawl along. And when I talk to him, you'll
be surprised."
"You're utterly wrong," Travers minor told the policeman. "You're quite
on the wrong scent, and if you interfere with that man, you'll very
likely ruin your own career in the Force. He's much more powerful than
you think."
But the policeman said he'd chance that, and then, in the name of the
law, he made us come and help him.
It was a most curious experience. When we got there, the spy had
disappeared, and the policeman, knowing that he could only go about one
mile an hour, said he must be hidden somewhere near.
"And if you chaps are any good as scouts, now's your chance to show it,"
he said.
By this time I began to believe the policeman, for he was a big man and
very positive in his speech; but Travers hated him, and if he'd found
the spy, I believe he would have said nothing. But I found him, or,
rather, I found his boot. He had, no doubt, seen us stopped by the
policeman, and then hastened to evade capture. There was a haystack in
a field, and he had gone to it, and on one side, where it was cut open,
there was a lot of loose hay, and he had concealed himself with the
utmost cunning, all but one boot. This I observed just peeping out from
a litter of loose hay, and not feeling equal to making the capture
myself, I pretended I had not seen the boot, and went off and told the
policeman, who was hunting some distance off, and also eating
blackberries while he hunted.
He was much pleased and hastened to make the capture; and when he
arrived and he saw the boot, he said: "Hullo, Soapy, old pard! Got you
this time, my boy!"
Then the hay was cast aside, and the great spy; otherwise known as Soapy
William, rose up.
It was rather a solemn sight in a way, for he took it pretty calmly, and
said he'd been wanting a fortnight's rest for a long time.
After the capture, the policeman seemed to lose interest in Travers
minor and me. In fact, he didn't even thank us, but he gave us back our
money, and it was rather interesting to find that Soapy William, besides
our six shillings, had the additional sum of two and sevenpence
halfpenny also.
Travers minor didn't speak one single word, going back to Merivale,
until we were at the gates; then he said a thing which showed how
fearfully he felt what had happened.
He said:
"It makes me feel almost in despair about going into the Church, Briggs,
when there's such wickedness as that about."
And I said:
"I should think you would want to go in all the more."
And afterwards, when we had changed and had tea, and we were in school,
he got calmer and admitted I was right.
But he took a gloomier view of human nature afterwards, and often, on
scouting days, he said there was more satisfaction in helping a beetle
across a road, or making a snail safe, than there was in trying to be
useful to one's fellow-creatures.
We had to go and give evidence against Soapy William before a Justice of
the Peace two days later. In fact, it was Sir Neville Carew, who lived
at the Manor House, and he seemed to be very much amused at our
evidence, and almost inclined to let Soapy off. But he gave him a
fortnight, and Soapy said to us as he 'oped we'd let the great
Baden-Powell know how he was being treated; and everybody laughed,
including Brown, who had gone to the court with us.
But, after that, Dr. Dunston cooled off to the Boy Scouts a lot; and
when the terrific adventure to Travers minor finally occurred, about
three weeks after, Travers major said it was a Nemesis on old Dunston;
and so undoubtedly it was.
Though not actually in it, I heard all the particulars--in fact,
everybody did, for naturally Dr. Dunston was the most famous person in
Merivale, and when this remarkable thing overtook him, The _Merivale
Weekly Trumpet_ had a column about it, and everybody for miles round
called to see him and say how jolly glad they were it wasn't worse.
It was a fierce afternoon, with the leaves flying and the rain coming
down in a squally sort of way, and Travers minor and I went for a drill,
and after the drill we scouted a bit on rather a lonely road where
nothing was in the habit of happening. But, as Travers truly said, the
essence of scouting is surprise, and because a road is a lonely and
uneventful sort of road, it doesn't follow something may not happen
unexpectedly upon it.
He said:
"No doubt the roads in the valley of the river Aisne, in France, have
been pretty lonely in their time, but think of them last September!"
So we went, and one motor passed us in two miles; and two dogs poaching
together also passed, and in a field was a sheep which had got on its
back and couldn't get up again, being too fat to do so. We pulled it up.
In another field was a bull, and we tried to attract it, and scouted
down a hedge within fifty yards of it, to see if it was dangerous, and
warn people if it was; and I went to within forty yards of it, being a
good twelve yards from the hedge at the time, but it paid no attention.
Then, just at the end of the road, we came across an old woman sitting
by the roadside in a very ragged and forlorn condition, with a basket of
watercresses and also about twelve mushrooms.
Thinking she might be lame, or otherwise in difficulties, Travers minor
went up to her and said:
"Good evening! D'you want anything?"
And she said:
"Yes, a plucky lot of things, but none of your cheek."
"It wasn't meant for cheek. I'm a Scout," said Travers minor.
And she said:
"Oh, run along home and ask mother to let out your knickers, else you'll
bust 'em!"
Travers turned white with indignation, but such was his great idea of
discipline, that he didn't tell her she was a drunken old beast, which
she was, but just marched off. But he was fearfully upset, all the
same, and, instead of pouring out his rage on the horrid old woman, he
poured it out on me. He'd been a bit queer all day, owing to a row with
Brown over a history lesson, in which Travers minor messed up the story
of Charles II; and now, what with one thing and another, he lost his
usual self-control and got very nasty.
He said scouting with another person was no good--not with me, anyway.
And I said:
"What have I done?"
And he said:
"You're such a fathead--nothing ever happens when you're about!"
I told him to keep his temper and not make a silly ass of himself. I
also asked him what he thought was going to happen. I said:
"We all know you're always ready for anything--from an Uhlan to a
caterpillar--but it seems to me the essence of scouting is to keep wide
awake when nothing is happening, like the fleet in the North Sea. Any
fool can do things; the thing is always to be ready to do them, and not
get your shirt out and lose your nerve because there's nothing to do."
This good advice fairly settled Travers minor. He undoubtedly lost his
temper, as he admitted afterwards, and he said:
"When I want you to tell me my business, Briggs, I'll let you know."
And I said:
"Your first business is to keep your hair on, whatever happens."
And he said:
"Then I'll relieve you of my company, Briggs."
And, before I could answer, he had got through the hedge and gone off
over a field which ran along a wood. I watched him in silent amazement,
as they say, and he crossed the field and entered the wood and
disappeared.
This action alone showed what a proper rage he was in, because he had
gone into the Manor Woods, which was not only going out of bounds, but
also trespassing--two things he never did. It was a fearful loss of
nerve, and I stood quite still for a good minute after he vanished.
Then my first idea was to go and lug him back; but discretion was always
the better part of valour with me, and always will be, owing to my
character; so I left Travers to his fate, and hoped he'd soon cool down
and come back without meeting a keeper. It was growing dusk, too, and I
went back to Merivale, and decided not to say anything about Travers
minor, except that, while we were engaged in some scouting operations, I
had missed him.
I only heard the amazing tale of his adventure afterwards, and though
everybody had the story in some shape or form, I got the naked truth
from Travers minor himself in his own words. Next morning, much to our
surprise, it was given out that Dr. Dunston was unwell, and Fortescue
read prayers; and during that event Travers told me all.
"When I left you," he said, "I was in a filthy bate, and for once,
instead of not wanting to trespass and break bounds, I did want to. And
I went straight into the Manor Woods, and badly frightened some
pheasants that had gone to roost, and was immediately soothed. They
made a fearful row, and I thought a keeper would be sure to spring up
from somewhere, and rather hoped one would, in order to afford me an
opportunity for an escape. But nothing happened, and I decided to walk
on till I came to the drive, and then boldly go along out of the
lodge-gate. Well, I walked through the wood to the drive just before it
got dark. I was looking out cautiously from the edge of the wood, to
see that all was clear, when I observed a man sitting on the edge of the
drive. For a moment I thought it was that wretched Soapy William again.
He was humped up and nursing his foot which was evidently badly wounded.
Then the man gave a sound between a sigh and a groan and a snuffle, and
I saw it was Dr. Dunston!
"Of course, it was the moment of my life, and I felt, in a sort of way,
that my whole future career depended upon my next action. My first
instinct, remembering that Norris and Booth were both flogged when
caught here, was a strategic retreat; but then my duty as a Boy Scout
occurred to me. It was a fearful choice of evils, you may say; for if I
cleared out, I was disgraced for ever, and my mind couldn't have stood
it, and if I went forward, I was also disgraced for ever, because to be
flogged, to a chap with my opinions, is about the limit. I considered
what should be done, and while I was considering, old Dunston groaned
again and said out loud:
"'Tut--tut! This is indeed a tragedy!'
"That decided me, because the question of humanity came in, and looking
on into the future in rather a remarkable way, I saw at once that if I
retreated and heard next morning that old Dr. Dunston was found dead, I
should feel the pangs of remorse for evermore, and they would ruin my
life. I also felt that, if I saved him, he was hardly likely to flog me,
because there would undoubtedly be a great feeling against him if he
did."
"You might have done this," I said. "You might have retreated, and then
gone down to the lodge and told the woman that there was an injured man,
in great agony, lying half-way up the drive. You might have given a
false name yourself, and then, when the rescuing party started, you
might have cleared out and so remained anonymous. It would have gone
down to the credit of the Boy Scouts, and old Dunston would have been
the first to see that the particular Boy Scout in question preferred,
for private reasons, to keep his identification a secret."
Travers was much impressed by this view.
"I never thought of that," he said. "Probably, if I had, I should have
done it. Anyway, I'm sorry I swore at you and called you a fathead,
Briggs. You're not a fathead--far from it."
He then continued his surprising narrative in these words:
"Anyway, I decided to rescue the Doctor, and stepped out of ambush and
said:
"'Good evening, sir. I'm afraid you're hurt.'
"He was evidently very glad to see me; but you know his iron discipline.
He kept it up even then.
"'What boy are you?' he asked, and I told him I was Travers minor from
Merivale.
"'And how comes it you are here?' he asked again.
"'I was operating in the woods on my way home, sir, and I heard your cry
of distress.'
"'We will investigate your operations on another occasion, then,' said
the Doctor. 'For the moment mine are more important. I have had a bad
fall and am in great pain. You had better run as quickly as possible to
the Manor House, ask to see Sir Neville Carew, and tell him that I have
met with a very severe accident half-way down his drive. Whether I have
broken my leg, or put out my ankle, it is not for me to determine. I
have been drinking tea with Sir Neville and learning his views as to the
War. Be as quick as you can. You will never have a better opportunity
to display your agility.'
"Then I hooked it and ran the half-mile or so to the Manor House,
sprinting all the way. I soon gave the terrible news, and in about ten
minutes Sir Neville Carew himself, with his butler and his footman, set
off for the Doctor. And the footman trundled a chair which ran on
wheels, and which Sir Neville Carew kindly explained to me he uses
himself when he gets an attack of gout, which often happens,
unfortunately.
"He didn't ask me how I discovered the accident, which was naturally
rather a good thing for me; and when we got back to the Doctor, he told
me to hasten on in advance and break the evil tidings. So I cleared
out. And I've heard no more yet; but no doubt I shall soon."
That was the great narrative of Travers minor, and after morning school
Brown gave out that the Doctor's ankle was very badly sprained, but that
things would take their course as usual, and a bulletin be put up on the
notice-board in the evening.
And it was, and it said the Doctor was better.
Travers minor heard nothing until three days later, when the Doctor
appeared on a crutch and read prayers. Then he had Travers up and
addressed the school. And Travers saw at a glance that Dr. Dunston was
still in no condition to flog him, even if the will was there.
It ended brilliantly for Travers, really, because the Doctor said he had
been an instrument of Providence, and he evidently felt you ought not to
flog an instrument of Providence, whatever he's been doing. He reproved
Travers minor pretty stiffly, all the same, and said that when he
considered what a friend Sir Neville Carew was to the school, and how
much he overlooked, and so on, it was infamous that any boy should even
glance into his pheasant preserves, much less actually go into them.
And Travers minor was finally ordered to spend a half-holiday in
visiting Sir Neville Carew and humbly apologizing to him for his
conduct. Which he did so, and Sir Neville Carew, on hearing from Travers
that he would never do it again on any pretext whatever, was frightfully
sporting and forgave him freely, and talked about the War, and reminded
him about Sir Baden-Powell's brother, and ended by taking Travers minor
into a glass-house full of luscious peaches and giving him two.
And Travers kept one for me, because, he said, if it hadn't been for
getting into a wax with me, he would never have trespassed and never
have had the adventure at all.
And I said it wasn't so much me as that beast of an old woman who told
him his knickers were too tight.
"In strict honesty," I said, "she ought to have this peach."
Then I ate it, and never want to eat a better. In fact, I kept the stone
to plant when I went home.
THE HUTCHINGS TESTIMONIAL
Naturally, all Merivale was deeply interested in the adventures of Mr.
Hutchings at the Front of the War. Of the three masters who had
instantly volunteered, only Hutchings had actually gone to the Front,
being a skilled territorial and holding a commission in the Devons; but
the other two, Manwaring and Meadows, had to be content with Kitchener's
Army, because they were ignorant of the subject of warfare and had to
begin at the beginning. Of course, Fortescue would have proudly gone,
as his splendid poems on the war and his general valiant feelings
showed, and we were very sorry we had misunderstood him; but his aorta
being a bit off quite prevented him doing anything except write splendid
poems urging everybody else to go; and no doubt many did go because of
them. As for Brown, he was five feet nothing, or thereabouts, and so he
wasn't wanted, and I believe in secret he thanked God for it, though in
public he said it was the bitterest blow of his life. And Rice, who
doesn't fear Brown, asked him why he didn't join a Ghurka regiment; and
Brown said nothing would have given him greater pleasure, only,
unfortunately, owing to caste, and religion, and one thing and another,
it was out of the question. He appeared to bar the bantam regiment
also, probably not so much as the bantam regiment would have barred him.
So you may say Merivale only had one man at the positive Front, though
Jenny Dunston, the Doctor's youngest daughter but two, was engaged to a
man in the Welsh Fusiliers, and he was there, and Abbott's father was
also there. They were, of course, nothing to us, though no doubt a good
deal to Jenny Dunston and Abbott's mother; but all our excitement
centred on Hutchings, who was a lieutenant, and was often believed to do
the work of a captain when actually under fire. He occasionally sent a
postcard to Fortescue, saying that all was well, and I believe Fortescue
also got a letter with pieces censored out of it; but he did not show it
to us, though he told Travers minor and Briggs that it was anxious work.
This was when the British Expedition was falling back, much to its
regret. But soon the time came when they got going forward again, and
then Fortescue bucked up and, I believe, wrote his best poetry. In
fact, Fortescue really was a sort of weather-glass of the War, if you
understand me, and chaps in his class said that, after a reverse, you
could do simply anything with him, and he didn't seem to have the
slightest interest in work, and didn't care if you were right or wrong.
And in a way it was equally all right for his class after a victory, for
then he was so hopeful and pleased that he never came down on anybody.
So we hadn't got to read the papers, because, after seeing Fortescue in
the morning, we always knew the general hang of the War. In fact,
Mitchell, who was a cunning student of other people's characters, though
his own was beastly, said that you had only got to look at Fortescue's
neck to know how it was going at the Front. If his head was hanging
over his chest, it was certain the Allies had had a nasty knock; and if
it was just about normal, you knew nothing had happened to matter either
way; and if it was thrown up and straight, and Fortescue's eyes were
bright behind his glasses, then you knew that we had scored, or else the
French or Russians had. Then a little child could lead Fortescue, as
Mitchell said.
And at last came Hill No. 60, and the fearfully sad news that Hutchings
was dead or wounded; and many of us would have given a week's
pocket-money to know which. Then came the good news under the Roll of
Honour that he was only wounded, and after that, many of us would have
given a week's pocket-money to know where. Presently we heard from Dr.
Dunston that he was in Paris; and then we heard that he was coming to
England and going to the private house of some very sporting rich people
who had turned their mansion into a hospital for wounded officers.
Then Fortescue heard from Hutchings, and most kindly gave us the
information that he had been wounded in two places--the shoulder and the
calf of the right leg. And we were thankful that it was no worse.
We were allowed to write to Hutchings, and Barrington, who was head boy
now that Travers major had left, composed a letter, and everybody signed
it. And I hope he liked it. But then came the great idea of a
presentation to Hutchings. I am Blades, and it was my idea, though
afterwards Sutherland and Thwaites claimed it. But I promise you it was
mine, and we had a meeting in chapel one night before prep., at which
Barrington proposed and I seconded the great thought that we should make
a collection of money for a memorial to Hutchings.
Barrington said:
"We are met together for a good object, namely, to collect money for a
valuable memorial of his bravery in the War for Mr. Hutchings, or I
should say Lieutenant Hutchings. Everybody here--even his own
class--likes him; and the new boys, who do not know him, would equally
like him if they did. No doubt there will be a very fine medal of Hill
No. 60 struck and presented to our troops who were in that terrific
battle, and no doubt Lieutenant Hutchings will get it; but it often
takes years and years before war medals are struck and presented to the
heroes of a battle, and I have heard that some of the medals from the
Battle of Waterloo are still hanging fire; and many ought to have had
them who died a natural death long before they were sent out. So I
propose that we make a collection for Mr. Hutchings and present him with
a valuable object before he goes back to the War, because, if we leave
it till afterwards, it may be too late."
And I said:
"I beg to second the excellent speech we have just heard, and if anybody
is of a different opinion, let him say so."
It was carried.
Then Barrington said we must have a committee of management, with a
secretary and treasurer, and it was done.
The committee consisted of me and Barrington and Sutherland and
Thwaites; and Rice, who would not have been on such an important thing
in the ordinary way, was proposed, because he was enormously popular and
would be able to persuade many to subscribe who would not otherwise do
so without great pressure. That only left the treasurer, and well
knowing Mitchell's financial skill and mastery of arithmetic in general,
I proposed him. Some chaps, who owed Mitchell money, were rather shy of
voting for him; but finally they decided it was better to have him for a
friend than an enemy, and so they voted in his favour. I myself owed
Mitchell three shillings, for which I was paying twopence a week, which
was a fair interest. And personally I always found him honourable,
though firm.
Anyway, he was made treasurer, and he said the subscription lists must
be posted in a public place, because in these cases people liked to see
their names where other people would also see them, and that publicity
was the backbone of philanthropy.
We left it with him, as he thoroughly understood that branch of the
testimonial, and meanwhile from time to time the committee met to
consider what ought to be bought. And we differed a good deal on the
subject. I thought, as Hutchings would certainly go back to the War
when he was well, we ought to buy him a complete outfit of comforts,
including blankets, tobacco--of which he was very fond--a Thermos flask,
a wool helmet, day socks, night socks, a mouth-guard to keep out German
stinks, and, in fact, everything to help him through the misery of
warfare, including a filter for drinking water. And Sutherland was
rather inclined to agree with me, but the others were not.
Thwaites said:
"My dear Blades, you talk as if you were his grandmother. No doubt he's
got women relations to look after paltry things like that; but a
testimonial rises to a much higher plane, in my opinion. It ought to be
something that will last for ever and not wear out and be forgotten."
And Rice said:
"Get the man a revolver."
And Barrington said:
"He's got one."
And Rice said:
"Of course he has. And if we get him another, then he'd have two, and
that means six less Germans some day, very likely."
But Barrington didn't approve.
"We want a testimonial that has nothing to do with actual battle," he
said. "The War won't last for ever, and we ought to buy something
useful, and also ornamental, that Hutchings will be able to employ in
everyday life when all is over. We want something that will catch his
eye a hundred times a day and pleasantly remind him and his family of
his heroic past--and us."
"An heirloom, in fact," said Thwaites.
But I argued that practical comforts at the critical moment would be far
better than an heirloom for future use, because if he didn't have the
mouth-guard and filter and so on, he might die; and where would the
heirloom come in then?
I said:
"What's the good of knowing you've got a silver ink-pot, or a
tea-kettle, or a cellaret full of whisky at home, when you're perishing
for a wholesome drink on the field?"
And Barrington said that was petty, and so did Thwaites. They seemed to
think that the remembrance of our testimonial safe at home would carry
Hutchings safely through all the horrors of the campaign.
It turned out that I had rather touched up Barrington, for he had
actually been thinking about a silver ink-pot, and Thwaites had been
thinking about a cellaret with three bottles of various spirits; but I
told them flatly I didn't agree with them. Then they asked Sutherland
his idea, and he said it wasn't so much what we should like as what
Hutchings would.
He said:
"Perhaps a very fine meerschaum pipe, mounted in silver with an
inscription, would do, because there you have a creature comfort of the
first class and also a testimonial which would not wear out. And a pipe
would be far more to Hutchings, either in war or peace, than an ink-pot,
or, in fact, anything of that sort."
And Rice said:
"Why not get the man a sword? He could use it in the War, and, if all
went well, he could hang it up in his home afterwards; and if there was
blood on it, then he'd have great additional pleasure every time he
looked at it. And so would his family."
Barrington rather liked the sword; but he said classy swords were
frightfully expensive, and he doubted whether we should run to it. Then
the committee broke up, to meet again when we found how the
subscriptions came in.
Unfortunately, this department of the testimonial was very slow.
Mitchell, with great trouble, wrote out a list of the whole school, and
was allowed to put it on the notice-board. Class by class he wrote
it--one hundred and thirty-two boys he wrote--with money columns and a
line leading from each boy to the money column. On it, in large
ornamental letters, Nicholson, who was a dab at printing, put the
words--
TESTIMONIAL FUND TO LIEUTENANT
HUTCHINGS, FROM MERIVALE SCHOOL.
Then we all waited breathlessly for the result in the money column.
There was some delay, because everybody, of course, wrote home on the
subject and mentioned it in the next Sunday's letters; and we pointed
out to the kids that a good and useful thing to write home about, and
something at least to fill two pages, would be the Hutchings
testimonial. Whether they made the appeal or not, of course, none could
tell, but if they did, the response was fearfully feeble. When
questioned, they said that their people at home had done such a
frightful lot for the War already that further cash for Hutchings was
out of the question; while other parents wrote back, not that they had
done much for the War, but that the War had done much for them in a very
unfavourable manner. The result was apparently the same in each case,
and the Lower School, all except Peterson in the Third, responded very
badly to the appeal. He produced ten bob, much to our amazement, and
there was one other ten bob, secured by Abbott through his mother,
because his father was at the Front and still unwounded. As for the
Sixth, who headed the list, we all gave three bob to a man, except
Barrington, who gave five. The Fifth came out at about one and tenpence
a head, which was fair, without being particularly dazzling; but the
Fourth fell away a good deal. And after that there was a hideous array
of blanks.
Mitchell said it was probably owing to the utter failure of the
dividends of the parents of the Lower School; and as we could not
apparently make bricks without straw, we considered how to tackle the
Lower School. There is no doubt the failure was genuine, for many of
them had even their pocket-money reduced; so Pegram--who had only
subscribed a shilling himself, by the way--proposed that the kids should
be invited to give property instead of cash.
He said:
"If they all yield up something they value, we can collect the goods in
a mass and have a sale, and the proceeds of the sale can go to the
Hutchings Testimonial."
The committee approved of this, excepting Thwaites, who thought nothing
of it; but when asked to give his objections, he merely said:
"Wait and see."
Which we did do, and found that Thwaites was wonderfully right, and had
looked on ahead much farther than us. The kids agreed willingly to
subscribe in goods, and were only too delighted to do so; but when it
came to the point, the goods of the kids proved utterly worthless in the
open market. It was a revelation, in a sort of a way, to see the things
the kids valued and honestly thought were worth money. In fact, Preston
said it was pathetic, and Pegram said we had a good foundation for a
rubbish heap, but nothing more. They brought string and screws and
nails, also the glass marbles from a certain make of ginger-beer bottle,
and knives fearfully out of order, and corkscrews, and padlocks without
keys, and a few threadbare story books, and three copies of _Hymns
Ancient and Modern_, and two old horseshoes, and catapults and bullets
and shot and charms. They also brought three steel watch-chains and one
leather one; and Percy Minimus offered a watch-chain made from his
mother's hair, so he said; but nobody bid for it, naturally, for who on
earth wants a watch-chain made out of somebody else's mother's hair?
There was also a bottle imp, fourteen indiarubber balls and seven golf
balls--all worn out--two kids' cricket bats unspliced, three pairs of
tan gloves--new but small--and one pair of wool ones, eight neckties,
not new, and a silk handkerchief, given to Tudor in case he had a cold
in his head, but not required up till now, and therefore new. Among
other items was half a packet of Sanatogen, also from Tudor, a box of
chocolate cigarettes, several conjuring tricks, mostly out of order, and
three guinea-pigs alive. Of other live things were included a white
rat, with pink eyes and a hairless, pinkish tail, and a dormouse, which
Mathers said was hibernating, though Mitchell thought was dead. It
proved alive, on applying warmth, and fetched fivepence. Lastly, there
was a chrysalis, into which a remarkable caterpillar, found by Hastings
on the twenty-first of last September, had turned; and as nobody knew
the species of moth to be presently produced by it, Hastings thought it
worth money, and put a reserve of two-pence on it. But the chrysalis
was long overdue, and so it did not reach the reserve; and so Hastings,
who was still hopeful, bought it back for that sum. As a matter of
fact, it never turned into anything, and was found to be quite hollow
when examined.
There was a good deal of other trash hardly worth mentioning, and many
lots at the sale did not produce any offer at all, let alone
competition; and the owners of these lots thankfully got them back
again, though, of course, sorry that they commanded no market value.
And some kids were much surprised to find their rubbish had no value at
all in the eyes of the larger world, so to speak.
One way and another, the sale realized eight shillings and fourpence,
chiefly owing to the generosity of Rice, who gave the absurd sum of two
shillings for the guinea-pigs, which were not even the chrysanthemum
variety of pig, with wild and tousled hair, but just sleek, ordinary
pigs, and known to be far past their prime. One, in fact, had a bald
head.
The Hutchings Testimonial now stood at four pounds fourteen shillings
and sevenpence; and thanks to a windfall in the shape of five shillings
from Cornwallis, who had a birthday and got a pound for it, we were now
practically up to a fiver. In fact, I myself flung in the fivepence.
But we were far from satisfied, for, as Mitchell with his mathematical
mind pointed out, five pounds spread over one hundred and thirty-two
boys amounts to the rather contemptible smallness of ninepence and
one-eleventh a boy. We raised the question of inviting the masters to
come in, from Dr. Dunston downwards, and some fondly thought that
Dunston would very likely give another five pounds to double ours; but
Barrington said he had reason to fear this would not happen, because,
from rumours dropped between Brown and Fortescue, which he had
accidentally overheard while working in Fortescue's study, he believed
that a good many parents were putting the moratorium in force on the
Doctor; and Fortescue seemed to think that it was quite within human
possibility that the Doctor might put the moratorium in force on him and
Brown, with very grave results to their financial position. But Brown
said the moratorium was over long ago, and could not be revived against
them.
Then two things of considerable importance happened on the subject of
the Hutchings Testimonial. Firstly, we heard that Hutchings might come
to Merivale for a week or so before returning to his regiment; and,
secondly, Mitchell made a very interesting offer concerning the five
pounds now deposited with him. He said, very truly, that money breeds
money in skilled hands, and that no financier worthy of the name ever
lets his talent lie hid in a napkin, but far from it. He said to the
committee:
"It's like this. We are now a fortnight from the holidays, and the
holidays will be five weeks long. Five and two are seven, therefore it
follows that for seven weeks this five pounds is doing nothing whatever.
This would be untrue to the science of political economy and banking.
Therefore I propose that I send the five pounds to my father and ask him
to invest it in his business. My father, John Septimus Mitchell,
Esquire, is a member of the Stock Exchange of London, and would, no
doubt, very easily turn our five pounds into six, or even seven, in the
course of seven weeks. This would greatly increase the power of the
committee and the extent of the testimonial for Hutchings. And then, at
the beginning of next term, we shall be able to buy and present the
testimonial in person to Hutchings."
Well, knowing Mitchell, it was rather a delicate question in a way; but
what he said was sound finance, as Barrington admitted, and Barrington
himself felt thoroughly inclined to trust Mitchell. We went into a sort
of private committee, after Mitchell had gone, and though I and Thwaites
voted against, the majority was in favour of agreeing to the suggestion
of Mitchell. Therefore it was done.
Then Mitchell sent the five pounds to his father, and gave us the
cheering news that his father had received it and agreed to invest it at
interest; and Mitchell handed Barrington a document from his father to
show all was being rightly managed on the Stock Exchange about it. And
Barrington kept the document carefully, as it was legal, and had a penny
stamp on it.
We next returned to the question of the testimonial itself, and still
could not agree about it, though we were now able to argue on the basis
of seven pounds instead of five. We had agreed about a sword, but
unfortunately found, on inquiries, that a sword worthy to be called a
presentation sword would cost about fifty pounds, and ought to have
rubies and emeralds in the handle, which was, of course, out of the
question. Many things were suggested, but none, somehow, met the case,
and we fairly kicked ourselves to think that a committee like us were
such a lot of fatheads. And, of course, dozens of the chaps asked us
about it, and were rather surprised we couldn't think of the right
thing. Proposals were showered in, but all to no purpose, and the end
of the term actually arrived without anything being settled. It was
then agreed that we should all think hard about the form of the
testimonial during the holidays, and Barrington hoped that events at the
Front might develop and help us to hit on a happy idea. And we all
hoped so, too. As for Mitchell, he said that he thought very likely
Hutchings would rather have the money than anything else; but that was,
of course, what Mitchell himself would rather have had, though far below
the mind of a patriotic man like Hutchings. And Thwaites said rather
scornfully to Mitchell that no doubt he would rather have money than an
heirloom to hand down to the future generations; and Mitchell said that
he undoubtedly would, because money was out and away the best possible
sort of heirloom, and everybody knew it at heart, even though they might
pretend different.
Then the holidays took place, and the prizes were decidedly skimpy,
which was a disappointment to those who got them and a comfort to those
who didn't. Nothing of any consequence occurred to me during the
holidays, and I had no idea for Hutchings worth mentioning; and when we
all returned, we found the committee as a whole were in the same
position as before. There were many suggestions made, certainly, but
none that pleased the entire committee. Then a dreadful thing upset the
situation, and for three days the darkness of returning to school was
made darker still by a sensational rumour. Mitchell did not turn up on
the appointed afternoon, and it was whispered that he wasn't coming back
at all! Presently the whisper grew into a regular roar, so to speak,
and Brown announced the tremendous news that Mitchell had left
altogether, and might be going straight into his father's business of
being a stockbroker on the Stock Exchange, London.
To add to this, Hutchings was now staying at Merivale with the Doctor
for a few days before going back to the War, and he had already heard
about the testimonial, and was undoubtedly in a great state of
excitement about it. His wounds had taken an unexpectedly long time to
heal, but he was now quite ready for renewed activity at the Front, and
was, in fact, going back on the following Friday with other healed,
heroic men.
Our position had now become extremely grave, and we held a committee
meeting instantly, and Thwaites and I were in the position of the late
Lord Roberts when he clamoured for an army and couldn't get one, because
we had strongly advised that Mitchell should not be allowed to send the
money to his father; but the committee had outvoted us. I was dignified
myself, and did not remind the committee of my views; but Thwaites did,
and there was a good deal of bitterness in the remarks of the committee,
till Barrington reminded us of the legal document which we had preserved
with such care. He said that he was not in the least alarmed, and felt
sure that, whatever Mitchell might be, the father of Mitchell was a man
of honour, and would not risk his position on the Stock Exchange of
London for a paltry seven pounds.
So we wrote to the address on the legal document, stating the case and
saying politely, but firmly, that we expected the seven pounds by return
of post. We added that we trusted Mitchell's father implicitly, and
that as the matter was very urgent, owing to Mr. Hutchings being just
off again to the Front, we hoped that he would be so good as to give it
his personal attention the moment he received our letter. This we all
signed, to show how many people were interested and that it was a
serious affair.
For three very trying days we heard nothing, and the school was in a
fair uproar, and the committee got itself very much disliked. Then,
when we had decided to put the matter into the hands of Dr. Dunston,
Mitchell himself wrote to me and sent a cheque signed by his father.
But it was not for seven pounds, I regret to say. In fact, it was not
even for six. His wretched father had merely sent us back our five
pounds with sevenpence added! Mitchell explained that we had received
four per cent. for our money, and that he was sorry nothing better could
be done for the moment, owing to the Stock Exchange being very much
upset by the War. And he asked us for a stamped receipt for the money,
which we sent him in very satirical language, and said that no doubt his
father had made the two pounds himself. And we promised faithfully that
when we grew up and had dealings on the Stock Exchange of London, they
wouldn't be with Mitchell and his father. Barrington, by the way,
wouldn't sign this piece of satire, which was invented by Tracey. All
the same, we sent it, but Mitchell never answered it, and soon
afterwards he turned up again, having merely been ill and not going to
leave at all. Hutchings was going on the following Friday and something
had to be done at once. The committee, which was now fairly sick of the
sight of one another, met again--for the last time, I'm glad to say--and
the question being acute, as Thwaites said, we proposed and seconded
that a master, or two, should be invited to help us with ideas. Then I
thought of something still better, and suggested that we should simply
and straightforwardly go to Hutchings himself and ask him what he most
wanted in the nature of an heirloom that could be got for five pounds
and sevenpence; and everybody gladly seconded this idea, though, of
course, it was not so impressive as making a presentation with a few
dignified words and the whole school present, as we had meant to do.
However, we went to Hutchings, and he was much pleased, and said it was
ripping of us all, and promised, the morning before he went, to try and
get us a half-holiday as a memory of him. This was good, but still
better was the great ease with which Hutchings decided what he wanted.
He said:
"I'll tell you what I'll do. On my way through London to Dover I'll buy
a pair of field-glasses, and I'll have inscribed somewhere on them--
'To LIEUTENANT T. HUTCHINGS,
FROM MERIVALE SCHOOL.'"
We agreed gladly to this, and so did everybody, and several chaps, who
had suggested this very thing and been turned down, reminded us
afterwards.
At any rate, Hutchings got them, and wrote to Barrington, from a
direction he couldn't name, to say he'd got them, inscribed and all, and
that they were splendid glasses, and that we might picture him often
using them on the field, to mark the enemy's position or sweep the sky
for aeroplanes; which was very agreeable to us to hear, and showed all
our trouble was by no means in vain. And, in return, we wrote to
Hutchings and told him we were very pleased to know about the glasses,
and were glad to inform him that we had got the half-holiday, and that
though it unfortunately poured without ceasing all the time, it was
quite successful in every other way.
THE FIGHT
My name is Rice, and there was only one thing I hated about the War, and
even that I had to stop hating, because of England. My first feeling
was the War had come too soon, and that if it had only been four years
later, I should have been there. But, saying this to Tracey, he pointed
out that, from England's point of view, it was lucky the War had come
when it did, because every year was making the Germans stronger, while
we went gaily down the hill reducing our Navy and our Army too. So it
was a jolly good thing the Great War hadn't waited till I went into the
Army. In fact, in four years, by all accounts, there mightn't have been
any army to go into.
"No doubt you'd have been a host in yourself, Rice," said Tracey in his
comical way, meaning a joke, which I easily saw; "but, all the same, as
we had to fight Germany, the sooner we did it the better."
So I gave up hating the sad fact of not being there, though it was extra
rough on me, because many people seemed to think it was going to be the
last war on earth; and if that was so, my occupation was gone, and I
might just as well not have been born, except for the simple and rather
tame pleasure of being alive. But what's the good of that, if you're
not going to do anything worth mentioning from the cradle to the grave,
as the saying is?
As far as mere fighting went, I did all I could at Merivale, and, after
seven regular fights, got to be cock of the Lower School. And in
ordinary times I should have been cock of the whole school; but,
curiously enough, there was one chap of very unusual fighting ability at
Merivale when I was there, and he was rightly regarded as cock of the
school in the science of fighting.
It happened, also, that he and I were tremendous chums--such chums as
are seldom seen--for we had similar ideas on all subjects and never
differed even on the subject of the boxing art. In fact we only
differed because I was going into the Navy and Sutherland minor was
going into the Law. He had no taste for soldiering, like his brother,
Sutherland major; though great genius for boxing, in which he took after
his father, and as his father was in the law and wanted him to go into
it, he resolved to obey.
But to me the law seemed a feeble profession, and I often tried to
dissuade him from it.
Sutherland minor was sixteen and a half and tall; I was fifteen, and
three inches shorter. He had better biceps than me and a longer reach,
and he said I had a better punch than him, but less science.
After my third fight, he always let me second him in his fights; but he
only had two before this particularly interesting fight I am going to
mention; and one was against Blades, which he won after six rounds by
excellent science and far superior footwork to Blades; and the other was
against a chap called Pengelly, who only came for one term and gave
himself frightful airs because he was a Cornishman. But I shouldn't
think Cornwall had much use for him.
One day Sutherland said that the Cornish might be very good at catching
pilchards and digging up tin, but they didn't seem much good at
enlisting in Kitchener's Army. And Pengelly said there was a reason for
that, though he refused to tell us what the reason was. Then he got
into a fearful bate, and, little knowing the truth about Sutherland,
challenged him to fight; which, of course Sutherland instantly agreed
to. Pengelly was very big and strong, and if he had been able to hit
Sutherland as often as he wanted to, the fight might have been
interesting, but, having no science whatever, he was useless against
Sutherland. By sheer strength he stuck to it for eight rounds, during
which time he got a fair doing and Sutherland was hardly marked; but
then, though by no means all in, Pengelly realized that he wasn't going
to get a knuckle on Sutherland and so he gave up.
He wasn't a bad chap really, though rather foolish about Cornwall, and
he even said to me deliberately that a Cornishman was as good as an
Irishman, which showed, if anything, that he was weak in his head. And
after his fight with Sutherland, we asked him again what the reason was
that Cornwall was so slack at enlisting, and he said that the truth was
that half of all Cornish chaps go into the Navy, which, owing to
Cornwall being almost surrounded by sea, they prefer. But whether
that's true, or only a piffling excuse, I don't know.
Anyway, when it came to counting up the most famous men Cornwall ever
produced, he could only mention Sir Humphry Davy, who invented the
safety-lamp for miners, which was undoubtedly all right in its way, and
"Q," who wrote _Dead Man's Rock_, and was knighted for doing so; and
nobody ever deserved it more. But that was all, whereas, when it came
to Ireland, of course, I could count up thousands of the greatest heroes
in creation, including Mr. Redmond, who has just got Home Rule for us
after fearful obstacles.
But I never fought Pengelly; there wasn't time. For he only had one term
at Merivale, and then, I believe, went to Canada suddenly, to an uncle
there.
After that began the curious affair between me and Sutherland. But as
it was remarkable in every way and will never be forgotten by our
families, I may mention them.
In the first place, Sutherland's mother was a chronical invalid. I said
it must be very difficult to love a person who lived in bed and could
never be any use out of doors, or ride to hounds, or anything; and he
said that it made no difference and that he was accustomed to it,
because his mother had always been an utter crock ever since he knew
her, and even at her best, when she was feeling unusually fit, she only
changed her bed for a sofa in his father's study. Apparently she was
just as keen about him as my mother was about me, and though she didn't
much care to hear about his fights, she tried to understand the beauty
of them like his father did. But naturally this father was more to
Sutherland than the mother could be; because his father had been amateur
middle-weight champion of England in his time, and held the cup for
three years, and had been runner-up twice also. He was, therefore, a
very great boxer and fighter, and Sutherland had been taught by his
father, which accounted for his genius at it and his style, which was
very finished. He would undoubtedly have been a "pro" if he had been in
another walk of life; but as it was, he fully intended to do as well as
his father had done in the amateur boxing world, though, as he was
growing very rapidly and was also a great eater, it looked as if he
would end by being a heavy-weight, which his father never was; though,
as Sutherland told me, his father had beaten a few good heavy-weights in
his time, though he never touched twelve stone in his boxing days.
Sutherland major, by the way, had just left Merivale when the War broke
out, and he instantly went into the O.T.C.'s and soon became a second
lieutenant and went to France.
This father of Sutherland was a lawyer, and Sutherland regretted to say
that the War had done him harm as, owing to it apparently, people were
not going to law nearly so much as usual. Still he thought, after the
War, he might find a great improvement. He was a lawyer of the sort
called a barrister, and wore a wig and gown and pleaded for criminals
before the judges and juries on the Western Circuit, often getting them
off when it looked jolly bad for them--so Sutherland said.
But my father was quite different, being a gentleman at large, and
funnily enough, owing to the War, he made the first money he had ever
made in his life, for he had a great knowledge of horses, and the War
Office, hearing of this, let him go out and choose and buy horses for
it, which he willingly did, and for his trouble he got the enormous sum
of a guinea a day!
My mother sent me a sovereign of my father's earnings and told me to
keep it and bore a hole in it and put it on my watch-chain, and be proud
of it; but this I did not do, because a sovereign is a sovereign, and I
simply couldn't see a good sovereign wasting its time, so to speak, on
my watch-chain.
Then one day, walking as usual with Sutherland on the way to a footer
match in which we were both playing, both being in the first "soccer"
team, him at right back and me at right half, we got talking about a
fight I rather hoped to have with Briggs. And Sutherland was trying to
think of a _casus belli_ which, in English, means a reason for the
fight. But, knowing Briggs, he said no _casus belli_ would ever arise;
and I said in that case, if Briggs were willing, we might fight for a
purse, if anybody would subscribe one.
And then Sutherland reminded me that I should become a "pro," and Briggs
also, if that were done.
He said:
"Briggs wouldn't fight just for the sake of fighting, and as you and he
are very good friends, and there's no 'needle' in it, it looks
difficult."
Then we talked, and then he happened to say--about fighting in general
and weights and so on:
"You might just as well think of licking him"--speaking of Hutchings,
who had gone to the Front--"as you might of licking me."
"Of course," I said; "it would be absurd."
That was the whole conversation, and I forgot it while the match was on,
and, in fact, it didn't come back to me till I went to bed that night;
and then it fairly kept me awake, and I was fearfully sorry I'd said it
would be absurd for me to think of licking Sutherland. In fact I got
sorrier and sorrier, and then I wondered why the dickens Sutherland
thought it was such a mad idea my licking him; and before I went to
sleep I felt, in a way, rather sick with Sutherland for having such a
poor opinion of me.
In the morning the feeling was still there, and he noticed I was a bit
off and asked me if I was all right, and I said I was.
But it weighed fearfully, and I fairly got to hate myself in about two
days for having said the idea of my licking Sutherland was absurd. In
fact, the more I thought about it, the less absurd it seemed. I knew he
was heavier and had a longer reach and was older and more scientific;
but he himself had said that I had a fine punch; and if you've got that,
you never know what may happen; and many an unlikely thing has come off
in the ring owing to unexpected smacks landing at the right moment in
the right place.
After a good deal of hard thinking and going down about four in my form,
which landed me at the bottom, I felt I must speak to Sutherland, or I
should burst.
So when he asked me, for the thousandth time, what was the matter and if
anybody had scored off me, or anything, I said:
"Look here, Sutherland, you remember that while going to the footer
match last week, you said I might just as well think of licking you as
of licking Hutchings?"
And he said:
"Yes, I remember."
And I said:
"I told you it was absurd, didn't I?"
"You did--naturally," answered Sutherland.
"Well," I said, "I was wrong--it wasn't in the least natural for me to
say that, and there's nothing absurd about it. It's been on my mind
ever since. And now I see it wasn't absurd."
"What wasn't absurd?" asked Sutherland. "The idea of your licking
Hutchings, or the idea of your licking me?"
"The idea of my licking you," I said firmly.
For a moment Sutherland was quite silent.
"D'you really think so?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "After considering it quietly--in bed and in chapel and
at many other times--I can't see anything absurd about it."
"In fact, Rice, you think you might have a chance against me?" suggested
Sutherland.
"I don't say that it would be much of a chance," I told him. "Probably
you'd do me, because you're a lot cleverer and more scientific; but when
I said 'absurd,' I went too far."
Sutherland considered.
"You're quite right," he admitted. "You might get over a lucky one.
It's very unlikely, but you might. Therefore there would be nothing
absurd about our fighting, and I oughtn't to have suggested there was.
Somehow I never regarded us as in the same street. But, of course, we
may be."
"We're not," I said. "As for boxing on points we're not. But fighting
is different and--there you are."
He nodded.
"If you feel like that," he said, "of course----"
"I never did feel like that; in fact I never thought of it before," I
told Sutherland; "but now----"
He didn't say anything, so I went on:
"It's a matter of honour in a way," I said.
"From your point of view it is, no doubt," he answered.
"Isn't it from yours?" I asked him.
"Not exactly," he explained. "We're very good friends--in fact more
than just common or garden friends--and I never thought of fighting you,
regarding you as cock of the Lower School and not supposing the question
would ever arise between us, as I shall probably leave Merivale before
you get into the Upper School--if ever you do. Still, as you feel your
honour makes you want to fight me, you must, of course."
"There's no _casus belli_ otherwise," I said, and Sutherland answered
that honour was the best _casus belli_ possible. He said:
"Of course, if you honestly feel that I have wounded your honour, Rice,
we must fight."
And I said:
"You haven't wounded it exactly. In fact I don't know what the dickens
you have done. But you've done something, and though you're my chum and
I hope you always will be for evermore, yet I don't believe I shall get
over this feeling, or, in fact, be any more good in the world till we've
fought."
"As a matter of fact," said Sutherland, "you've wounded your honour
yourself, by thoughtlessly agreeing to my suggestion that you couldn't
lick me. Still, whatever has done it, the result is the same, I'm
afraid."
"I'm afraid it is," I said.
I suppose no two chaps ever arranged a thing of this sort in a more
regretful frame of mind, for we had always been peculiarly friendly, and
the idea of ever fighting had never occurred to us; but it was just that
fatal remark of Sutherland, showing his point of view, and showing me,
with only too dreadful clearness, his opinion of me as compared with
him. And the queerest thing of all was that I quite agreed with him
really, only there was a feeling in me I couldn't possibly let it go at
that; and, of course, there was also a secret hope that, after all,
Sutherland and I might both be mistaken about his being such a mighty
lot better than I was.
So we agreed to fight on the following Saturday afternoon, as there was
only a second eleven match on our own ground, and we should have leisure
to go into the wood close by, where these affairs were settled.
Needless to say, the world at large was fearfully surprised when it
heard we were going to fight. We still pottered about together in our
usual friendly way, and when we were asked, as of course we were, what
we were fighting for, it was more than I could do to explain, or
Sutherland either. Travers major understood the truth of the situation,
and I think Thwaites did, and possibly Preston; but to have tried to
explain to anybody else the frightfully peculiar situation would have
been impossible, for they hadn't the minds to understand it. So we just
said in a general sort of way, we were still chums, but felt such a
tremendous interest in the question of which was the greatest fighter,
that we were going to find out in the most friendly spirit possible.
Of course, being easily the two best in the school, the sensation was
huge, but the general opinion seemed to be that I must be mad to think
of beating Sutherland, and I never argued much about it, and said very
likely I was, but that I hated uncertainty in a thing like that.
Pegram said:
"It will be your Sedan, Rice," meaning that I should be treated by
Sutherland like the French were treated by the Germans on that occasion.
But I did not think so. I said:
"Most likely I shall be licked and badly licked, which is nothing
against such a man as Sutherland; but it won't be my Sedan by long
chalks, because we've agreed whichever wins it will make no difference."
"Certainly there will be no indemnity," said Pegram, "as you're both far
too hard up for any such thing; but you needn't think the beaten one
will ever feel the same again to the winner; because human nature is all
against it."
"Your human nature may be," I said to Pegram, who was a foxy chap, great
at strategy, but otherwise mean. "Your human nature may be like that,
but mine and Sutherland's is not."
All the same, I had Pegram to second me, because he is full of cunning,
and I also had Travers minor; and Sutherland had Abbott, who is a very
fine second, and would be a fine boxer, too, but for a short leg on one
side.
Williams was his other second, and Travers major consented to be
referee.
Fighting was not allowed at Merivale, but Travers, though head of the
school, and never known to break any other rule, supported fair
fighting, because he believed it was good; and he also believed that the
Doctor did not really much dislike it, though no doubt to parents he had
to say he did. Brown, however, hated fighting, and as he was master in
charge on the appointed day, we had to exercise precautions and keep the
fight as quiet as possible.
Though favourable to fighting as a rule, Travers never cared much about
my fight with Sutherland and even tried to make us change our minds.
But he had no reasons that we thought good enough, or rather, that I
thought good enough; because of course I was the challenger and
Sutherland had no choice but to agree.
It turned out that Sutherland was rather glad of the fight, because it
distracted his mind from sadness. A fortnight before, he had been home
from Saturday till Monday, to see his mother, who was worse, because his
brother Tom, or Sutherland major, was in the trenches; and his father
had been very gloomy about it, so the fight served to cheer him up, and
brighten his spirits, which was one good thing it did.
Then the eventful day arrived, and the fortunate chaps who knew that
this was the appointed time, looked at me with awe; and as we were
getting up in our dormitory, Percy Minimus whispered to me:
"You'll look a very different spectacle to-night from what you do now,
Rice."
The morning seemed long and I jolly near messed up the whole thing and
had a squeak of being kept in for the half-holiday, but I escaped, and
at last the time came when the footer match was in full swing and Brown,
with a lot of kids, watching it.
Then, one by one, about fifteen of us strolled off, including Sutherland
and me and our seconds and Travers major and Preston and Blades and
Saunders and Perkinson and Ash, and Percy Minimus, who liked the sight
of blood, if it wasn't his own.
No time was lost, and a ring was made with a bit of rope while
Sutherland and I prepared. They were two minute rounds, and Ash kept
the time.
No two chaps ever shook hands in a more friendly spirit, and as to the
fight itself, as I cannot relate it, I may copy the notes that Blades
took. He missed a good many delicate things that we did, but the
general description, though not at all in regular sporting language,
gives a fair idea of how it went. He wrote these words:
_Round_ 1.--Sutherland seemed thoughtful and not so much interested as
Rice. Rice advanced and dodged about and struck out into the air
several times and danced on his feet; and once he would have hit
Sutherland; but Sutherland ducked his head under the blow, and before
Rice could recover, hit him with both fists on the body. Rice laughed
and Sutherland smiled. They were dancing about doing nothing when Ash
called time, and they rested, and their seconds wiped their faces and
Rice blew his nose with his fingers.
_Round_ 2.--Now Sutherland began to hit Rice a good deal oftener than
Rice hit him. But, in the middle of the round, Rice got in a very fine
blow on Sutherland's face and knocked him down. Sutherland instantly
rose bleeding, but by no means troubled. He praised Rice and said it
was a beauty. And Rice said, "Don't patronize me, Sutherland," but
Sutherland did not answer. For the rest of the round Sutherland hit
Rice several times, but didn't make him bleed. It was a good round and
both were panting at the end.
_Round_ 3.--Sutherland wouldn't let Rice get near enough to hit him and
kept catching Rice's attempts on his arms. And his arms being longer
than Rice's, he could land on Rice without being hit back. He did not
hit so hard as Rice, but he hit Rice, whereas Rice hit the air. Still
Rice got in a very good one just in the middle of Sutherland's body,
which doubled up Sutherland, and before he could undouble again, Rice
had hit him very hard on the face with an upper cut. Sutherland fairly
poured with blood, but was quite cool and showed no signs of not liking
it. He got in a very good blow with his left on Rice's neck before Ash
called time.
_Round_ 4.--It was certainly a very fine fight of much higher class than
we had ever seen before at Merivale. This round was the fiercest up to
now, and Travers major had to caution Rice for being inclined to use his
head. Still he fought very finely, but it worried him fearfully to be
hit so often without getting one back. The hits were not heavy hits to
the spectator, but they must have been harder than they looked, because
Rice, who has black hair and a very pale skin by nature, was now getting
a mottled sort of skin. In this round they were rather slower than
before, and stood and panted a good deal, and while they panted, they
looked at one another with a sort of doleful cheerfulness from time to
time. But there was also fierce fighting, and Sutherland at last drew
blood from Rice with a blow on the nose. At the sight of his blood,
Rice gave a great display and kept Sutherland moving about, and at last
hit him backwards out of the ring. But Sutherland instantly returned
and went on fighting till the end of the round. It was a splendid round
in every way.
_Round_ 5.---Both were now rather tired, and in this round they took it
easy.
But at taking it easy Sutherland was much better than Rice and did not
waste so much energy in feinting. He had the best of this round and hit
Rice twice or three times on the face. At the end he fairly knocked
Rice down, and when Ash said "Time," Pegram and Travers minor rushed to
pick up Rice and carry him to his corner; but he rose and walked.
_Round_ 6.--This looked as though it was going to be the last, for
Sutherland was now fresher than Rice and evidently stronger. Rice began
the round well, but soon fell away, and Sutherland hit him several
times, and once over the right eyebrow and cut him, and evidently did
that eye no good. Rice made ferocious dashes and Sutherland got away
from them; and then, while Rice was resting, Sutherland dashed in and
Rice didn't get away. Sutherland hit Rice on the chest and knocked him
down, and it looked as though he wasn't going to get up again; but he
did, and still had good strength. He was being licked, but slowly. At
the end of the round he got one good one in, though it was lucky.
I must here break off the account of the fight by Blades to describe a
most amazing thing which made this fight far unlike any other that I or
Sutherland had ever fought. After the sixth round we were being mopped
up and Pegram was advising me to chuck it, and I was saying, in a
gasping sort of way, I should try to stick a few more rounds and hope
for a bit of luck, when, to our great horror, there suddenly appeared
from the trees Brown and a man clad in black. At first we thought it
was a policeman, and that Brown had heard of the fight and had called a
constable to take us up; but it turned out that Brown hadn't heard of
the fight, and the man in black was none other than the father of
Sutherland, the famous middle-weight of other days!
He had called to see Sutherland, and had been sent to the playing field;
and there he had been met by Brown. And Brown, guessing that the big
chaps were in the wood, had brought Sutherland's father actually to the
ring side!
Brown, of course, was furious and wanted to stop the fight and take down
all our names; but the famous middle-weight would not hear of this. The
moment he found that Sutherland was fighting, a wave of animation went
over him and he begged Brown as a personal favour to let us finish. He
even promised to put it all right with the Doctor if anything was said,
which showed his fighting qualities were still there. Brown, of course,
curled up; but his little eyes blazed, and he said that Sutherland's
father must take the responsibility, which he gladly undertook to do.
Then Brown, giving us a look which told without words what would happen
when Sutherland's father was gone, went back to the kids.
In the meantime, I and Sutherland had a fine rest, and after that we
went on again. I wished much that his father had seen the whole fight,
because I knew now, only too well, that Sutherland had got me and that,
of course, with his father there, he'd buck up and do something out of
the common; and I deeply wished my father were there, and not far away
buying horses at a guinea a day in Ireland. But I hoped now, with this
good rest, to last at least two more rounds.
I may now go on with the description of Blades.
_Round_ 7.--Much refreshed by about six minutes' rest, Rice and
Sutherland began again, and Sutherland's father watched the fight with a
calm and sporting interest. He was a clean-shaved man of large size
about the shoulders; but he had a pale, sad-looking face and very thin
lips, and one ear larger than the other. Sutherland had to withstand a
wild rush from Rice and hit Rice while he backed away from him, which
pleased his father. But Rice was not stopped, and he got close to
Sutherland and hit him very hard on the body until they fell into each
other's arms. And Sutherland's father said, "Break! Break!" and then
apologized to Travers major, who was referee. They parted, and Rice,
evidently much refreshed, went after Sutherland and hit him about three
or four times; then Sutherland hit him once. Then it was time.
_Round_ 8.--Sutherland's father certainly seemed to have brought
Sutherland bad luck, for in the next round Rice held his own, and though
knocked down at the beginning of the round, got up and went on. And
Sutherland's father asked me how many rounds had been fought, and was
very much interested in my notes. And, owing to him reading them, I
could not describe this round. At the end both were tired, one not more
than the other.
_Round_ 9.--Rice, feeling he had still a chance, fought as well as ever
in this round, and Sutherland was clearly not taking anything like his
old interest in the fight. He kept looking mournfully at his father and
didn't seem to care where Rice hit him, and I could see that his father
was a good deal disappointed. Rice had much the best of this round, and
Sutherland bled again, though Rice did also.
_Round_ 10.--It began all right, though both could hardly keep up their
arms, and then, without a blow, suddenly Sutherland shook his head and
extended his hand to Rice, and Rice shook it and the battle was over.
That was the end of what Blades wrote, but much remains to be told, and
the fight, which was extraordinary in the beginning, turned out far more
extraordinary at the end. I couldn't believe my senses when Sutherland
gave in, and more could his father, and then came out the truth, which
was sad in a way, but really much sadder for me than Sutherland.
Because what I had thought was a right down glorious victory, well worth
the pint of blood I had shed and the tooth I had lost, turned out to be
what you might really call very little better than winning on a foul.
After the fight, Sutherland hastened to his father and asked him about
Sutherland major and heard he was all right and going strong. Then he
actually began to blub; and his father rotted him and asked him what the
dickens was the matter with him, and how he had given in to a chap sizes
smaller than himself, and then Sutherland, between moments of undoubted
weeping explained.
He said:
"I never saw you in black clothes before, because at home you always
wear tweeds with squares and a red tie; and seeing you in pitch black,
of course I thought Tom was dead. Till then I was winning, and Rice
knows I was; but after you came and I felt positive Tom was dead----"
Then Sutherland was quite unable to go on, and his father asked him
however he thought he could have stood there grinning at a kid fight
under such sad circumstances. Then he led Sutherland away and explained
that he happened to have been attending a funeral, near Plymouth, of
some old lawyer friend; and he thought he would kill two birds with one
stone, as they say, and come over and have a look at Sutherland and tell
him they'd heard good news of his brother and that his mother had bucked
up again.
Well, there it was, and much worse for me than Sutherland, because his
grief was turned into joy; but my joy was turned into grief--winning in
that footling way, which didn't amount to winning at all. In fact it
was mere dust, and enough to make me weep myself, only that was a thing
I had never been known to do, and never shall in this world, or the
next.
However, Sutherland minor was jolly sporting about it, and thoroughly
understood how it must look from my point of view. He even offered to
come to Ireland in the Christmas Holidays, if my people would ask him,
and fight me again on my own ground. He couldn't say more, but though I
gladly accepted the idea of his coming to Ireland, which was a very
happy thought on his part, I told him frankly that I should not fight
him again at present.
"We may meet some happy day in the Amateur Championships, Sutherland," I
said, "if I get large enough and you don't get too large."
"No, Rice," he answered; "for I shall be a heavyweight when I'm twenty,
and you at best can never hope to be anything but a welter; but I hope
we'll second each other many a time and oft."
PERCY MINIMUS AND HIS TOMMY
There were three Percys at Merivale, and they were all there together;
and to masters they were, of course, known as Percy major, Percy minor,
and Percy minimus, but we called them "the Three Maniacs."
Though mad, they were nice chaps in a way, and did unexpected things and
always interested everybody because of their surprises. They were all
very different but very original, owing to their father being a
well-known actor. And Percy major was already an actor by nature, and
could imitate anything with remarkable exactness, from Dr. Dunston to a
monkey on a barrel organ. He could even imitate a hen with chickens,
but he was going for much higher flights when he went on the stage, and
knew the parts of Hamlet and Macbeth and Richard III by heart; though he
said to Travers, and I heard him, that it would probably be many a long
day before he got a chance to act these great tragical characters before
a London audience. His father, on the contrary, was a comedian, and
Blades had once seen him in a pantomime and liked him, and said that he
was good.
Percy minor was not going on the stage, though when he liked he could be
awfully funny. Only he was generally serious, and meant to be a
painter. His great hope was to take likenesses, and he was always
practising it, and his school books were full of portraits of chaps and
masters. Some you could recognize.
As for Percy minimus, he was the maddest of the lot, and my special
friend. We were in the Lower Third; and Forbes minimus was also our
special friend. But he chucked Merivale, as his parents went to the
Cape of Good Hope and took him, and then Percy and I were left.
Percy never came out much while his brothers were at Merivale, and his
only strong point was singing in the choir. At music he was an
undoubted dab, and he liked it, and he said that, if his voice turned
into anything worth mentioning after it cracked, he should very likely
be an opera singer of the first water. And if it failed and fizzled
away to nothing after cracking, as treble voices sometimes do, then he
was going to be a clergyman--if his father would let him.
He certainly sang like the devil, and Mr. Prowse, our music-master, was
fearfully keen on him, and arranged solos in chapel for him. And people
came from long distances on Sundays to hear him sing, though old Dunston
always thought, when outsiders turned up to the chapel services, it was
to hear him preach. But far from it.
Well, this Percy minimus was what you may call sentimental, and he
certainly was a bit of a girl in some ways. I hated that squashy side
of him, and tried to cure it; but I forgave him, because he liked me,
and not many chaps did, owing to my having a stammer.
Percy minimus was frightfully interested in my stammer, and said it
would very likely be cured when I grew up. He said that people who
stammer when they talk can often sing quite well; so I tried and found
it was so. But here, again, there was a drawback, because my singing
voice, though quite without any stammer, was right bang off as a voice,
and even funnier than my stammer.
Percy minimus said it was just the sound a fly made before it died, when
it was caught by a spider; so naturally I chucked it.
But this about Percy, not me. He had very kind instincts, and was of a
gentle disposition. For instance, when three of the masters went to the
war, and Dr. Dunston said he was going to fill the breach and do extra
work and take our class; while we much regretted it, Percy minimus
thought it was fine of the Doctor.
He said:
"Though it is bad hearing for us, Cornwallis, we are bound to admit it
is sporting of him. Because, at his great age, it must be very tiring to
do a lot of extra work; and no doubt to take the Lower Third must be
fairly deadly for such a learned man as him."
"It will be deadlier for us," I said; and, of course, it was. But that
shows the queer views that Percy gets--hardly natural, I call it. And
then, when the Doctor threw up the sponge and got a new master called
Peacock to help and fill the gap till after the War, when Hutchings and
Meadows would come back, if alive, Percy minimus was queer again.
This Peacock was old and dreadfully humble. I don't think he'd ever
been a master before, and he was very unlike his name in every way, and
had no idea of keeping order, but went in for getting our affection. He
tried frantically to be friendly; but he failed, because he was too
wormlike, being a crushed and shabby man with a thin, grey beard. And
when he attempted to fling himself into a game of hockey and be young
and dashing, he hurt himself and had to go in and get brandy.
I believe he was a sort of charity on old Dunston's part, really, for
Mr. Peacock told Pegram that he had a wife and six children, and his
eldest son was at the War, and his second son was in the General Post
Office, and his eldest daughter was a schoolmistress at Bedford.
Fancy telling Pegram these things! All Pegram did afterwards was to
make fun of Peacock and treat him with scorn, and many did the same; but
Percy minimus encouraged him, and he liked Percy minimus, and told him
several things about the General Post Office not generally known.
Peacock, finding that me and Percy minimus were rather above the common
herd, told us that he was very anxious about his son at the War, and was
very interested about the War in general, and made us interested in it,
too. He read us a letter from his son at the Front, and Percy minimus
said it brought home the horrors--especially in the matters of food.
Though not a great eater, Percy liked nice food better than any other
kind, and then, owing to this great feeling for nice food, there
happened the curious, and in fact most extraordinary, adventure of his
life.
He came to me much excited one day with a newspaper. It was a week old,
but otherwise perfect in every way, and it had started a scheme for
sending the men at the Front a jolly good Christmas gift. For the sum of
five shillings the newspaper promised to send off tobacco and cigarettes
and sweets and chocolate and a new wooden pipe, all in one parcel; and
so, as Percy minimus pointed out, if you could only rake up that amount
and send it to the paper, it meant that one man in the trenches on
Christmas Day would have the great joy of receiving all these luxuries
in one simultaneous parcel from an unknown friend at home.
I said:
"It's a splendid idea, and I should like nothing better; but, of course,
in our case, it is out of the question. We've both subscribed to the
Hutchings' testimonial, and there's not a penny in sight for me this
side of Christmas, and no more there is for you."
He admitted this, but said, because there wasn't a penny in sight, it
didn't follow we might not, by some unheard-of deeds, rake up the money
in time. And I said, well knowing what five shillings meant, that the
deeds would certainly have to be unheard-of. I said:
"There's a fortnight before you have to send in the money, but, so far
as I am concerned, it might just as well be ten years."
And he said:
"The problem simply is: How to raise five shillings out of nothing in
fourteen days."
And I said:
"Yes."
And he said:
"It sounds simple enough."
And I said:
"The hardest problems often do."
In two days he had got a shilling, by selling a thing he greatly valued.
It was a tie his mother had given him, and it was made of sheeny silk,
and changed colour according to which way you looked at it. His mother
had given half a crown for it, and Percy wore it on Sundays only.
It was Sutherland who gave the money; and that still left four
shillings, and Percy minimus hadn't got another thing in the world worth
twopence. He then tried writing home, and failed. He said his father
was out of work, and, though a very generous and kind father as a rule,
not just now. His mother also failed him. She wrote sorrowfully, but
said that she and his father had done everything about the War they
could for the present. He then wrote to his godmother, and got a
shilling. Encouraged by this, he wrote to his godfather, who didn't
answer the letter.
Fourpence had gone on stamps for these four letters, and he was
accordingly left with one and eightpence. Subtracting this from five
shillings, you will find he still had to raise three shillings and
fourpence.
It looked hopeless, and I pointed out there was the additional danger
that he might be accused of getting money under false pretences if he
didn't collect the lot; but he did not fear that, because, as he said,
whatever he might get, he could send to some other charity which was
open to take less than five shillings.
There were now seven days left, and he began to get very fidgetty and
wretched. He said he was always seeing in his mind's eye a Tommy in the
trenches waiting and watching and hoping, between his fights, that Percy
minimus would send him one of those grand simultaneous packets. It got
on his nerves after a bit, and twice he woke me in the dead of the night
in our dormitory sniffing very loud.
I said:
"You're making a toil of a pleasure, Percy."
And he said:
"No, I'm not. Whenever I go to sleep, I dream of my Tommy in the
trenches; and the parcels are being given out by Lord French, and my
Tommy stretches up his hand eagerly and hopefully; but there's no parcel
for him. And he shrugs his shoulders and just bears it, and goes back
to his gun; but it's simply hell for me."
"What's he like?" I asked, to get Percy minimus off the sad side of it.
"Huge and filthy," said Percy minimus. "He has a brown face and a big,
black moustache and one of the new steel hats; and he's plastered with
mud, and his eyes roll with craving for cigarettes and chocolates."
"You needn't worry," I said. "He'll get his parcel all right. Of
course, they won't miss him."
"What a fool you are, Cornwallis!" he answered, still sniffing. "Can't
you see that, if I don't send a parcel, there will be one parcel less;
and so one man will go without who would otherwise have had a parcel;
and that man will be this one I see in my dreadful dreams."
"If you put it like that," I said--"of course."
Then he had another beastly thought.
"I've got an idea the man is Peacock's son," he said. "And I feel a
regular traitor to Peacock now every time I look at him."
"Then why don't you ask him for some money?" I naturally answered.
"I feel he hasn't got any," replied Percy. "But I can try."
"Besides," I said, "his son may be an officer, and, of course, they
would be far above parcels."
"I hope he is," said Percy; "but I don't think he is. And nobody would
be above a parcel at a time like that."
Anyway he asked Peacock, and Peacock gave him sixpence, and wished he
could do better. This made two and twopence; and the same day Percy
found a threepenny piece in the playground; and though, at another time,
he would have mentioned this, with a view of returning it to the proper
owner, now he didn't, but said it was a Providence, and added it to the
rest.
And this gave him another hopeful idea, and he mentioned the parcel for
his Tommy in his prayers, morning and evening, and asked me to do so
too. I was fed up with the whole thing by now, because Percy was getting
fairly tormented by it, and even said he saw the Tommy looking at him in
broad daylight sometimes--over the playground wall, or through the
window in the middle of a class. Still I obliged him, and prayed four
times for him to get his two and sevenpence; but there was no reply
whatever; and in this way two days were wasted.
Then he had a desperate but brilliant idea, and told me. He said:
"After school on Friday, in the half-hour before tea, I'm going to break
bounds and go down into Merivale and stand by the pavement and sing the
solo from the anthem we did last Sunday! Many people who sing along by
the pavement make money by doing so, and I might."
"If you're caught, Dunston will flog you," I reminded him.
But he was far past a thing like that. His eyes had glittered in rather
a wild way for three days now, and he said the Tommy with the black
moustache was always looking reproachfully at him, and if he shut his
eyes he saw him more distinctly than ever. In fact, he was getting
larger and more threatening every minute. He said:
"A mere flogging is nothing to what they endure in the trenches."
It was a sporting idea, and I would have risked it and gone with him; in
fact, I offered, being his great chum, but he would not allow me.
"No," he said, "nothing is gained by your coming. This is entirely my
affair. Besides, you wouldn't tempt people to subscribe."
So he went, and escaped in the darkness, and I waited at the limit of
"bounds" with great anxiety to meet him when he came back. My last word
to him was not to sing his bit out of an anthem, but something comic
about the War. But he didn't know anything comic about the War, and he
said, even if he did, that such a thing would only amuse common people,
who could not be supposed to give more than halfpence, if they gave
anything at all; whereas a solo from a fine anthem would attract a
better class, who understood more about music, and were more religious,
and consequently had more money.
So he went, and in about twenty minutes, to my great horror, I saw him
being brought back in the custody of Brown--our well known master!
The hateful Brown always loves to score off anybody not in his own
class, and so, seeing Percy warbling out of bounds in the middle of
Merivale, and about ten people, mostly kids, listening to him, he
pounced on the wretched Percy and dragged him away. He'd been singing
about ten minutes when the blow fell, and he was fearfully upset about
it, because everything had been going jolly well, and he had already
made no less than sevenpence in coppers, all from oldish women. He had
been told to go away from in front of a butcher's shop, but nobody else
had interfered with him in the least, and he had sung the anthem solo
through twice, and was just off again when the brutal Brown came along
and saw the Merivale colours on his cap, recognized Percy minimus, and
very nearly had a fit.
So there it was; and he got flogged, and Dr. Dunston said it showed low
tastes, and would have been a source of great sorrow to his father. And
he also said that to explode a sacred air in that way in hope of
touching the charitable to fill his own pocket was about the limit, and
a great disgrace to the school in general. All of which went off Percy
like water off a duck's back, and the flogging didn't seem to hurt him
either.
And there were four days still, and he said his Tommy grew larger and
larger, until he was almost as big as a house. In fact, Percy minimus
was rapidly growing dotty, and, as his great friend, I felt I must do
something, or he would very likely get some other dangerous illness, or
have a fit, or lose his mind for ever and become a maniac in real
earnest. So I told Percy minor; but unfortunately he and my Percy had
quarrelled rather bitterly for the moment, and Percy minor said he
didn't care what happened to Percy minimus; and that if he went out of
his mind he wouldn't have far to go; while, as to Percy major, I
couldn't tell him, because he had left Merivale the term before.
The matron now discovered that Percy was queer, for she'd been making
him take pills for two days, and then one night, hearing him sigh
fearfully after he was in bed, she tried his temperature, and found it
about three hundred degrees of warmth. So she lugged him off to the
sick room, and Dr. Weston came in his motor, and said he couldn't see
any reason for it, and gave Percy some muck to calm him down.
Next day he was kept in the sick room, though cooler, and when Dr.
Weston came on that day and questioned Percy in a kind tone of voice, he
explained the whole thing to the doctor, and said that he was in fearful
difficulties of mind. And Dr. Weston asked him what difficulties, and
he said for two shillings, which, added to three, make five.
Then the doctor told him to go on, so he did, and showed the doctor the
advertisement from the paper about the simultaneous parcels. He also
said that his Tommy had now grown as big as a cloud in the sky, and was
always looking at him by night and day hungrily, and urging him on to
fresh efforts. And he also said that if he was only allowed to go into
the streets and sing an anthem for an hour or two, the two shillings
would be accomplished, and all would be well. And encouraged by the
great interest of Dr. Weston, Percy minimus ventured to ask him if he
thought he could ask Dr. Dunston to allow this to be done, seeing it
meant great comfort and joy for a Tommy in the trenches on Christmas
Day.
It made Percy much cooler and calmer explaining why his temperature had
run up, and the doctor said it was undoubtedly not good for Percy to
have the Tommy so much on his mind. He didn't approve of the idea of
Percy singing either; but he put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and
produced a two-shilling piece, as if it was nothing, and he said that if
the matron or somebody, would get a postal order for five shillings and
send it off at once, he had every reason to think that Percy would soon
recover.
Which was done, and I was allowed to see Percy, and bring from his desk
the cutting out of the newspaper, which he had already signed with his
name and address, which were to go to the Front with his parcel. And
Percy said that a great weight had now been lifted from his brain, which
no doubt it had.
Anyhow, when Dr. Weston came next day he found Percy in a bath of
perspiration, and was much pleased, and said he was practically cured.
And Percy told him that his Tommy had now shrunk to about the size of an
ordinary Tommy, and only came when he was asleep, and was not in the
least reproachful, but quite pleasant and nice. And one day later the
Tommy disappeared altogether, and Percy minimus became perfectly well.
In fact, before the holidays arrived he seemed to have forgotten all
about his Tommy, and I took jolly good care not to remind him.
He got fearfully keen about Dr. Weston then, and said that he was the
best man he had ever seen or heard of; and he even hoped that next term
he might run up to three hundred degrees again--just for the great
pleasure of seeing and talking to this doctor once more.
But that wasn't all by any means--in fact, you might say that far the
most remarkable part of the adventure of Percy minimus had yet to come.
He went home for the holidays, and when he came back, much to my
astonishment, he was full of his blessed Tommy again. He actually said
that he'd got a photograph of him!
I thought that coming back to school had made him queer once more, but
he wasn't in the least queer, for I saw the photograph with my own eyes.
It was like this: the Tommy who had got the Christmas parcel which
Percy's five shillings bought, found Percy's address in it, according to
the splendid arrangement of the newspaper, and, though far too busy in
the trenches to take any notice of it just then, he was not too busy to
smoke the new pipe and the cigarettes and eat the various sweets--no
doubt between intervals of fiery slaughter. But he kept Percy's address
in his pocket, for he was a good and grateful man; and then, most
unfortunately, he was hit in the foot by a piece of shrapnel shell, and
though far from killed, yet so much wounded that he had to retire from
the Front. In fact, he was sent home to recover, and one day in
hospital, about a week before the end of the holidays, he had found
Percy minimus's name and address in the pocket of his coat, and had
written Percy a most interesting letter of four pages, saying that the
parcel had been a great comfort to him, and that he had sucked the last
peppermint drop only an hour before being shrapnelled. And, having been
photographed several times in the hospital by visitors, he sent Percy
minimus one. And there he was!
I said it was a jolly interesting thing, and so on; but I couldn't for
the moment see why Percy was so frightfully excited about it, because it
was quite a possible thing to happen, though, of course, very good in
its way, and a letter he would always keep.
And he said:
"You don't seem to see the point, Cornwallis. It's a miracle."
And I said:
"Why?"
And he said:
"Because this is the very identical Tommy I was always seeing in my
dreams--the very identical one!"
I hadn't thought of that, but somehow taken it for granted. Then he
pointed out it wasn't in the least a thing to take for granted, but the
purest miracle that ever happened in the memory of man, and quite beyond
human power to explain it in the world.
I said there might be people in the world who could, but he wouldn't
hear of such a thing. He said:
"No--not in this world; but no doubt there are in the next."
And I said:
"Then you'll have to wait."
And he said:
"It's done one thing; it's quite decided me about my future. I'm going
to be a clergyman."
And I said:
"Not if your voice doesn't crack, surely?"
"My voice!" answered Percy minimus with great scorn. "What is a voice
compared to a miracle? If miracles happen to you, then, if you've got
any proper feeling, you ought to insist on being a clergyman."
So I suppose he will be. But whatever else he is--even if he rises to
be a Canon or a Bishop--he'll always be a maniac, the same as his
brothers.
THE PRIZE POEM
Things were beastly dull at Merivale when we went back after the
Christmas holidays, and I believe even the Doctor felt it. Of course,
from our point of view, his life must always be deadly, but I suppose he
gets a certain amount of feeble excitement into it, in ways not known to
us. It's rather interesting to wonder what old people do find worth
doing; yet they must do something to amuse themselves, off and on, or
they'd go mad, I should think, which they seldom do. The amusements of
a very old person must be rather weird, yet they clearly like to be
alive, for when my grandmother died, she was eighty--a time of life when
you'd think there was simply nothing left. Yet, when I went to say
farewell to her, she told me she hoped to see the spring flowers once
more. She didn't; but it shows how fearfully hard-up old people must be
for amusement of any kind; for who on earth would want to see flowers,
spring or otherwise, if practically everything else had not been lost to
them? Myself I would much rather have died years before than eat the
food my grandmother ate, and never go out except in a bath-chair; but
she found it good enough, strange to say. So, no doubt, Dr. Dunston,
who is entirely active, and can eat meat and drink wine and walk rapidly
about, still finds being Head of Merivale School all right.
But the winter term was deadly, what with the bad weather and the slow
progress of the War, and losing most of our football matches, owing to
having a very weak team.
Then old Peacock, of all men--the new master, I mean--got an idea, and
Fortescue thought it was a good one, and Peacock proposed it to the
Doctor, and Dr. Dunston agreed to it.
In fact, he announced it after chapel during the third week of February
in these words:
"Our new friend, Mr. Peacock, has made a proposal to me, and I have
great pleasure not only in agreeing with him, but in congratulating him
on a very happy thought. Suspecting that there may be mute, inglorious
Miltons amongst us--a sanguine hope I cannot share--Mr. Peacock has
thought that it would add an interest to the term and wake a measure of
enthusiasm and energy in the ranks of our versifiers if we initiate a
competition. He suggests a prize poem upon the subject of the War; and
while my heart misgives me, yet I bow to Mr. Peacock's generous
proposal. You are invited, one and all of you, from the greatest to the
least, to write a prize poem on the subject of the War, and if such a
momentous theme fails to produce some notable addition to our war
poetry, then Mr. Peacock's disappointment will be considerable. He
trusts you to enter upon this task in no light spirit, and when I add
that Mr. Peacock proposes to give a prize of one guinea--twenty-one
shillings--to the victorious poet, you will see that a real effort is
needed. You will have a calendar month to prepare and execute your
verses, which must be composed outside the regular school hours; and I
may tell you that unless a certain humble standard of intelligence and
poetic ability is reached, I shall direct Mr. Peacock to withhold his
prize."
Well, there it was; and, of course, a good deal of excitement occurred,
and it was jolly interesting to see who entered for the prize poem and
who did not. No doubt Travers major would have won it without an
effort, being so keen about everything to do with war; but, luckily for
the rest, he had left to go to Woolwich the term before. Travers minor
entered because he was strongly advised to, being a flier at literature
in general and keen about poetry; but he said frankly he should not
praise the War, but slate it, because he utterly disagreed with it and
hated war in general.
Of course, the prize being a guinea made a lot of difference, and many
unexpected chaps decided to write a prize poem, though most of these,
when they sat down with pens and ink to do it, found such a thing quite
beyond them in every way.
I myself--my name is Abbott--was one of these, and after reading a good
many real poems of the War, which Mr. Fortescue, who was a great poet
and much interested in the competition, kindly lent me, I found, on
setting out to do it, that the difficulties were far too great. Rhymes
are easy enough to get, in a way, but when you come to string the poem
together, you generally find your rhymes aren't solemn enough. I
believe I could have written a screamily funny prize poem; but, of
course, that wouldn't have pleased the Doctor, or Peacock either, so it
wasn't any good wasting time being funny. For instance, I wrote the
following poem in less than ten minutes:
The Hun, the Hun, the footling Hun,
Most certainly doth take the bun.
And Blades and several other chaps said it was jolly good. But Blades,
who had also had a shot or two on the quiet, was like me--he could only
make comic poems, and the stanzas of his poem took the form of
Limericks. He said he could invent them with the greatest ease--in
class, or at prayers, or at meals, or going to bed, or getting up, or in
his bath--in fact, at any time when he wasn't playing football. He gave
me an example, which seemed to me so frightfully good that I thought
very likely Peacock would have given him a consolation prize. So he
tried it on Peacock; but Mr. Peacock thought nothing of it, and said
that was not at all the spirit of a prize poem, but belonged to the
gutter-press, whatever that is. It ran like this:
The Kaiser set off for Paree
As if it was only a spree,
But old French's Army,
It soon knocked him barmy,
And now he is melancolee.
He next had a flutter at Nancy,
Though doubtless a little bit chancy;
But his men got a doing,
With plenty more brewing,
So he galloped off, saying, "Just fancy!"
There were hundreds more verses--in fact, you might say the whole
history of the War as far as it had got; and I advised Blades to send it
to _The Times_--to buck it up--or _Punch_, or something; but he
wouldn't, and when Peacock decided it was no use, he gave up writing it,
so a good poem was lost, in my opinion.
Many fell out before the appointed day for sending in the prize poems;
but many did not, and though it was natural that a good few chaps
chucked it, the extraordinary thing was the number of chaps who kept on
to the bitter end, so to speak, and sent in poems. Almost the most
amazing was Mitchell. He certainly had made a rude poem once in a
moment of rage, but as to real poetry, a cabbage might just as well have
tried to make a poem as him. He was only keen about one thing in the
world, and that was money; and, of course, that was why he entered the
competition. He said to me: "I'd do much worse things than make a prize
poem, if anybody offered me a guinea. If it had been one of the Doctor's
wretched prizes, I wouldn't have attempted it; but a guinea is a guinea,
and as nobody here can make poetry for nuts, I'm just as likely to bring
it off as anybody else. It's taking a risk, in a way, but I've got my
ideas about the War, just as much as Travers minor or Sutherland, and,
if I don't win, I shall get a bit of fun out of it, anyway."
He was a mean beast always, but cunning and frightfully crafty; and as
he had never had a decent idea in his life, let alone a poetical one, we
were all frightfully interested in Mitchell's poem on the War.
The chap Sutherland he had mentioned was regarded as having a chance,
for he knew a lot about the War, and had two cousins in it, one in
France and one with the Fleet. He got letters without stamps on them
from these chaps, but there was never much in them. Thwaites also
entered, and he was known to write poetry and send it home; but it had
not been seen, and Thwaites, being delicate and rather fond of art and
playing the piano and such like piffle, we didn't regard him as having
warlike ideas. Besides, once, when Blades suddenly pulled out one of
his teeth in class and bled freely over Thwaites, who sat next to him,
Thwaites fainted at the sight of blood; which showed he couldn't
possibly write anything worth mentioning on such a fearful subject as
war; because, you may say, a war is blood or nothing.
Only one absolute kid entered, and this was Percy minimus, who had sent
a Christmas pudding to the Front, and had the photograph of a "Tommy"
back. So he wrote a prize poem which he let his friends see, and Forbes
minimus said it was good, as far as he could say to the contrary. No
doubt it appeared so to a squirt like Forbes minimus, but, of course, it
could not be supposed to stand against the work of Travers minor, or
Sutherland, or Rice.
I always rather thought myself that Rice might pull it off, being Irish
and a great fighter by nature. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything
whatever about poetry; yet his fighting instinct made him enter, and
though he wasn't likely to rhyme very well, or look after the scanning
and the feet and the spondees and dactyls, and all that mess, which, no
doubt, would count, yet I hoped that, for simple warlike dash, Rice
might bring it off. I asked him about it, and he said a good many
things had gone wrong with it, but here and there were bits that might
save it.
He said:
"I believe I shall either win the guinea right bang off, or get
flogged." Which interested me fearfully, but didn't surprise me,
because it was rather the way with Rice to rush at a thing head-long and
come out top--or bottom. He only really kept cool and patient and never
ran risks when he was fighting; but at everything else, which he
considered less important, he just dashed. He had dashed at the prize
poem--very different from Tracey, who was always cool about everything,
and wouldn't have gone to the Front himself for a thousand pounds.
Tracey was great at satire--in fact, satire was a natural gift with
him--and though, of course, it didn't always come off, owing to being so
satirical that nobody saw it, still he often did get in a nasty one; and
sometimes got licked for doing so.
He told me his prize poem was all pure satire, and I said:
"I doubt if the Doctor or Peacock will see it."
And Tracey said:
"I can't help that. Poetry is art, and I can't alter my great feeling
for satire to please them. It will come out; and even though old Dunston
and Peacock don't see it, I know jolly well the Kaiser and the Crown
Prince would, if they read it."
Well, there it was, and that was about the lot worth mentioning who had
a shot at Mr. Peacock's guinea. The calendar month passed, and one day,
when classes began, the Doctor appeared, supported by Peacock,
Fortescue, and Brown.
Everybody was summoned into the chapel, and the Doctor, who dearly likes
a flare-up of this kind, told us that the prize poems had been judged
and were going to be read.
"I may tell you," he said, "that the prize has been won, contrary to my
fear that none would prove worthy of it. But we are agreed that there
is a copy of verses on the solemn subject set for discussion that
disgraces neither the writer nor Merivale. Indeed, I will go further
than that, and declare that one poem reflects no small credit on the
youthful poet responsible for it; and Mr. Peacock and Mr. Fortescue,
than whom you shall find no more acute and critical judges, share my own
pleasure at the effusion."
The Doctor then began to read the prize poems, and he started with that
of Percy minimus, much to Percy's confusion.
"The views of Percy minimus on the War are elementary, as we should
expect from a youth of his years," said old Dunston. "I may remark,
however, that he rhymes with great accuracy, and if he shows an
inclination to be didactic, and even give Lord Kitchener a hint or two,
I frankly pardon him for the sake of his concluding line. This reveals
in Percy minimus a flash of elevated feeling which does him infinite
credit. One can only hope that his pious aspiration will be echoed by
those great nations doomed to defeat in the appalling catastrophe which
they have provoked."
Then he gave us the poem.
THE WAR
BY PERCY MINIMUS
War is a very fearful thing, I'm sure you'll all agree,
But sometimes we have got to fight in order to be free.
The Germans want to slaughter us, and do not understand
We are a people famed in fight, and also good and grand.
We never were unkind to them and never turned them out
When unto England's shores they came, to trade and look about.
But all the time, I grieve to say, they only came as spies,
So that, when came the dreadful "Day," they'd take us by
surprise.
Which they did do, and if our ships had not been all prepared,
The Germans would have landed, and not you or I been spared.
Now all is changed, and very soon, upon the Belgian strand,
I promise you a million men of English breed shall land.
And thanks to good Lord Kitchener, their wants will be supplied
With splendid food and cosy clothes and many things beside;
But he must bring the big siege guns when Antwerp we shall
reach,
Because with these fine weapons we have got to make a breach.
So let us pray that very soon we smash the cruel Hun,
And if, by dreadful luck, we lose--oh, then God's will be done!
We applauded Percy minimus for his sporting attempt, feeling of course,
it was piffle really, but good for a kid. Then the Doctor said he was
going to read Rice.
"Mr. Fortescue," said Dunston, "has evinced the deepest interest in the
achievement of Rice. He tells me that there is now a movement in
art--including the sacred art of poesy--which is known as the Futurist
Movement. Rice's effort reminds Mr. Fortescue of this lamentable
outrage on the Muses, for it appears that the Futurists desire to thrust
all that man has done for art into the flames--to forget the glories of
Greece, to pour scorn on the Renaissance, to begin again with primal
chaos in a world where all shall be without form and void. This is
Nihilism and a crime against culture. For some mysterious reason, the
boy Rice, who we may safely assume has never heard of the Futurists
until this moment, appears to have emulated their methods and shared
their unholy extravagance of epithets, their frenzied anarchy, their
scorn of all that is lovely and of good repute. He even permits himself
expressions that at another time would win something more than a rebuke.
I will now read Rice, not for my pleasure or yours, but that at least
you may learn what is not poetry, and can never be mistaken for poetry
by those who, like ourselves, have drunk at the Pierian spring."
WAR
BY RICE
Smash! Crash! Crash! Bang! Crash! Bang!
Rattle, rattle, rattle, and crash again.
Air full of puffs of smoke where shells are bursting overhead,
Scream of shrapnel over the trenches and yells of rage!
Roar of men charging and howling a savage song---
"Now we shan't be long!" Tramp of feet--then flop! they fall,
Dropping out here, there, and everywhere, and rolling head
over heels like rabbits.
And some sit up after the charge, and some don't.
Shot through the heart or head, they roll gloriously over--all
in!
But on go the living, shouting and screaming, and some bleeding
and not knowing it.
As loud as the "Jack Johnsons" they howl, their rifles are at
the charge and the bayonets are white--
The white arm that goes in in front and out behind--
Or in behind and out in front of the Germans running away.
The Boche hates the white arm--it sends him to hell by the
million!
Crash! Crash! Squash! Smash! Smash! Smash!
The trench is reached. Blood spurts and bones crack like china.
Gurgles! Chokes! Yells! Helmets fly, bayonets stick
And won't come out! Everybody is dead or dying in the
trench--except twelve Tommies!
Damns, growls, yells choked with blood!
Death, awful wounds, mess, corpses, legs, arms, heads--all
separate!
The trench is taken, and England has gained
A hundred yards! Hoorooh!
Hoorooh! Hoorooh! Hoorooh!
And what must it be to be there!!!
Signed RICE.
I looked at Rice while his poem was being intoned by the Doctor. He had
turned very red, but he stuck it well, and somehow, though, of course,
it was right bang off, and no rhymes or anything, I liked it. And Mr.
Fortescue liked it, as he afterwards told Rice; but the Doctor and Mr.
Peacock fairly hated it, so that was the end of Rice.
They thought nothing of Tracey's poem, either. The Doctor said:
"Tracey has produced what, for reasons best known to himself, he calls
'a satire.' It possesses a certain element of crude humour, which, on
such a solemn theme, is utterly out of place. Upon the whole, I regard
it as discreditable in a Sixth Form boy, and do not think the better of
Tracey for having written it."
He then read Tracey.
A SATIRE
BY TRACEY
No doubt, O Kais
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/41779