The 
 Soldier Boy 
 
 A Book of War Gains 
 <By C.Lewis Hind 
 
Class ^L- L 
 
 Book 
 
 GopyrightN°___. 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT, 
 
THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 BY 
 
 C. LEWIS HIND 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 Gbe Umicfcerbocfcer press 
 
 1916 
 
ZD640 
 
 Copyright, 1916 
 
 BY 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Ube ftnfcfterbocfter Qvcss, mew IBorft 
 
 JUN 23 1916 
 ©CI.A433485 
 
Go 
 
 MY WIFE 
 (she knows why) 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 L- 
 
 — The Soldier Boy 
 
 1 
 
 II.- 
 
 —It is Well 
 
 9 
 
 III.- 
 
 —The Sentinel . 
 
 16 
 
 IV.- 
 
 —The Undying Things 
 
 . 23 
 
 V.- 
 
 —Wisdom .... 
 
 29 
 
 VI.- 
 
 —To a Subaltern 
 
 36 
 
 VII.- 
 
 —The Sensitive . 
 
 44 
 
 VIII.- 
 
 —The Quiet Room 
 
 52 
 
 IX.- 
 
 —June Joy .... 
 
 59 
 
 x- 
 
 —The Vision Splendid 
 
 72 
 
 XI.- 
 
 —Art and Immortality 
 
 77 
 
 XII.- 
 
 —The Unforgettable Sight 
 
 83 
 
 XIII.- 
 
 -The Whelps 
 
 90 
 
 XIV.- 
 
 —Enduring to the End 
 
 100 
 
 XV.- 
 
 —To One Who was Ready 
 
 . 109 
 
The Soldier-Boy 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 T^HE Soldier-Boy is nineteen. He is be- 
 ■* ginning. Let him be nameless until he 
 returns, bringing his sheaves with him. 
 
 The Soldier- Saint died a martyr's death 
 more than 1600 years ago, yet he moves still. 
 England's St. George lives immortal in the 
 great chronicle of history; lives a dazzling 
 figure in painting and sculpture and in the 
 inner memory, where things not seen — are 
 seen. Close the eyes and visualise this un- 
 painted picture — "once, in the history of our 
 land, the cross of St. George, red on a white 
 ground, was worn as a badge over the armour 
 by every English soldier." 
 
2 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 To-day, when the bugles blow and the men 
 swing down the street, I seem to see that 
 badge of the patron saint of chivalry and of 
 England floating in light on the khaki uni- 
 forms, presaging victory, because our cause 
 is right, and our army stands for all that 
 St. George means. I seem to see that badge 
 flashing from the breast of the Soldier-Boy, 
 as he crouches in the trenches on this the 
 eve of St. George's Day, England's Day, and 
 I send a message to him from Carlyle — this: 
 "Thou art not alone if thou have faith. 
 There is a communion of saints, unseen, yet 
 not unreal, accompanying and, brotherlike, 
 embracing thee, so thou be worthy." I 
 should not be surprised if he wears beneath 
 his khaki jacket, hidden from view, but very 
 near to him, that red cross on a white ground. 
 Soldier-Boy, thou art not alone! Thou art 
 kin to St. George!" 
 
 We spent a day together, the Soldier-Boy 
 and I, before he went out to the front. "I 
 shall be in the trenches on St. George's Day," 
 
THE SOLDIER-BOY 3 
 
 he said gleefully, and on that great name we 
 dwelt, talking of St. George, opening books, 
 reading aloud, repeating the strange, inspirit- 
 ing stories of his appearance during the 
 Crusades, and elsewhere when men were 
 righting for the Right, aiding all who had 
 accepted the spiritual idea of this soldier of 
 Christ — "patron of chivalry, emblem of 
 victory and civility, and the pride of the 
 best blood of the modern world." 
 
 We ignored all the false stories that have 
 gathered around St. George, finding him heroic 
 and beyond reproach, the peerless soldier 
 whose name and ensign Edward III. chose as 
 the inspiration of the most noble order of 
 knighthood in Europe. And as we talked, 
 fashioning and reverencing our ideal, I hop- 
 ing, ay, knowing, that the Soldier-Boy would 
 carry that ideal with him to Flanders, sud- 
 denly he addressed to me the natural question : 
 "I wonder what St. George was like?" 
 
4 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 I answered: "Almost every artist of im- 
 portance has given us his version of St. 
 George. The dragon is usually a failure, 
 often comic, for it is impossible to portray 
 in paint or marble the undying beast that 
 St. George sets forth, again and again, 
 through the centuries, to re-destroy. Eng- 
 land, at this moment, is destroying him anew, 
 and the spirit of St. George is watching and 
 inspiring England. If you were to ask me 
 which is the ideal figure in art of St. George 
 I would answer at once — that by Donatello." 
 
 The Soldier-Boy's face (he is not learned 
 in art) was blank. 
 
 " Donatello," I said, "was one of the great 
 early lights of sculpture. Born in Florence 
 in 1386, he produced works that have never 
 been surpassed in marvellous fusion of the 
 ideal and the real, and among his triumphs 
 was his statue of St. George, which he carved 
 for the Guild of Armourers. It was placed 
 in a niche of the Church of Or San Michele 
 in Florence in 14 16. There it should have 
 
THE SOLDIER-BOY 5 
 
 remained for ever in the tabernacle designed 
 by Donatello, but in 1890 some busybody 
 removed it to the Bargello Museum.' ' 
 
 "And you have seen it?" said the Soldier- 
 Boy. 
 
 "Yes. Some day we will see it together. 
 Meanwhile why not go now, at once, to the 
 South Kensington Museum, where there is 
 a good cast of Donatello's St. George? 11 
 
 The Hall of Casts is rather an eerie place 
 on a dim afternoon. The Present is domi- 
 nated by the Past. As we wander among these 
 dusty, crowded masterpieces, the mighty 
 records of art assail us, and we seem to be 
 the last of the living, entombed among the 
 memorials of the great dead. The Soldier- 
 Boy was silent, a little awe-struck, until I 
 indicated to him Donatello's St. George stand- 
 ing between a cast of The Shrine of St. Peter y 
 Martyr, in Milan, and the Pulpit of the Bap- 
 tistery in Pisa. He looked, he stared, and 
 uttered a long-drawn out "Ah — h." 
 
 St. George stands watchful in supple ar- 
 
6 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 mour, feet apart, ready to spring forward. 
 His cloak tied at the neck, falls over his 
 shoulders to his ankles; his hands touch, 
 lightly but firmly, his great shield, resting on 
 the ground and reaching to his waist; his 
 face has the self-reliant, purposeful look of 
 the great soldier, alert, fearing nothing, ready 
 with his life as with his sword. In the face 
 of this immortal warrior I see something 
 more. I see the look that we see on the 
 faces of those who have been fighting for us, 
 when they come back for a little while, and 
 a little rest (we have all seen it) ; the look, 
 half ecstasy, half resignation, which says: 
 "Who dies if England live!" 
 
 "Donatello has given us St. George for all 
 time. He is with our soldiers to-day as in 
 the fourteenth, as in the fourth century." 
 
 Then I looked down to the Soldier-Boy by 
 my side and I saw in his eyes that he under- 
 stood. 
 
 "There is no need for the dragon," he said. 
 
 "No," I replied, "Donatello knew that. 
 
THE SOLDIER-BOY 7 
 
 The dragon is already overcome, because his 
 adversary is St. George, and he has conquered 
 Death, too. His soul is immortal, as is the 
 soul of the Belgian people." 
 
 Then the Soldier-Boy spoke rapidly and 
 with a queer kind of shyness. "Look," he 
 said, "Donatello's St. George isn't unlike 
 the King of the Belgians. Really they might 
 be brothers, and — and some Belgian soldiers 
 have said that a shining figure like King 
 Albert's has appeared in the trenches and has 
 helped them, as St. George helped the Cru- 
 saders. Can it be? How splendid to believe 
 St. George lives on and on, aiding us if we 
 believe." 
 
 He stared at the figure of England's patron 
 saint. It was his hour of consecration. 
 Even then the red badge of St. George was 
 being woven by invisible hands beneath his 
 khaki tunic, and I have full faith that he will 
 go into battle one of the great band, linked 
 together through the centuries by the protect- 
 ing presence of the Soldier-Saint. 
 
8 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 "Yes, Donatello understood," I said, as 
 we turned away. "Prevision is the birth- 
 right of the greatest artists. And to myself 
 I whispered, call it, if you like, a prayer, 
 'Soldier-Boy, thou art not alone.' " 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IT IS WELL 
 
 " Is it well with the child ? ' ' And she answered 
 "It is well." — 2 Kings iv., 26. 
 
 T^HIS war either numbs or enriches. There 
 * are sights in hospitals, and in the streets 
 too, that would break the heart if it could 
 break; and after the hurricane of pity, and 
 anger that such things are possible, comes 
 numbness. There are stories about deeds 
 done in the war so fired with selfless splen- 
 dour, so great, so magnificent, that one is no 
 longer ashamed of living in a world where to 
 kill is a duty, but glad and proud to walk an 
 earth peopled by "our blessed boys." Then 
 comes enrichment. And since evil must pass, 
 and good must last, it is wiser to dwell on 
 the enrichment of our lives through those who 
 9 
 
io THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 have died for us, than to be numbed by 
 sorrow. They cannot really die. Innumer- 
 able families know that. Those happy war- 
 riors! Even the maimed smile. It is well 
 with the boys and with us, in whose hearts 
 they live for evermore. 
 
 Tears are near to smiles nowadays. There 
 is one enrichment story that I have often 
 told, and if it sometimes brought tears they 
 were tears of gratitude for such human hap- 
 penings. Far away it happened, months 
 ago it happened, during the campaign in 
 German South- West Africa, and the men who 
 have given us this immortal memory be- 
 longed to the Imperial Light Horse. Some 
 fell in the fight, and their comrades, before 
 they passed on, wrote on the rough memorial, 
 above the lonely grave, these words: "Tell 
 England, ye that pass this monument, that we 
 who rest here died content.' ' So these sons 
 of England are united to the sons of Sparta. 
 
 That enrichment came swiftly back to me 
 yesterday, and for long I saw nothing but the 
 
IT IS WELL ii 
 
 sandy plain, and the few sparse trees, and 
 the silent cross, and those few words, so far 
 away from England. It all came back to 
 me because in the Sphere, among the war 
 pictures that one looks at, and shudders in 
 the act of looking, there was one, a few inches 
 square, showing this lonely, distant grave, 
 the cross, and the placard. A few inches 
 square, yet it filled the wide world, enriching 
 it. "We who rest here died content." 
 
 What does it mean, this something in man 
 that astonishes and outlives death? That it 
 may prevail he dies gladly, renouncing all he 
 has — life — for a cause, for his country, for his 
 God. All creeds, all shades of belief and 
 unbelief are united in the acknowledgment, 
 common to all, of the inexpressible greatness 
 of sacrifice. Therein all mankind is one in 
 Christ. Can it be that out of the horror of 
 this war will come the conviction, no longer 
 a mere serious pastime, that the things which 
 are not seen are eternal, and that to find 
 them, and to make them real is the true and 
 
12 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 only quest of life? The eyes of us who linger 
 wearily at home are still clouded with the 
 fond delusions of unrealities, but those who 
 receive letters from the front, where our 
 brothers face horrible realities, know that 
 they are realising the unseen things in a way 
 that may change the world. One, a surgeon, 
 after remarking quietly, that the house in 
 which he had collected some wounded was 
 shelled and all killed except himself, adds: 
 "So it seems that I am to be spared to serve 
 my country a little longer." No thought 
 you observe, of self — only of his country. 
 Another writes: "On such a day as this, one 
 wishes to read well-expressed words which 
 deal with eternal things" — that was the day 
 after the great advance, and he adds: "War 
 is incredibly dreadful. I say incredible with 
 meaning, for I fail to understand how these 
 blessed boys of ours face with unflinching 
 courage what they do face. . . . It is a mat- 
 ter, I suppose, of faith in the ultimate good." 
 
IT IS WELL 13 
 
 I know how one has faced it, and he, in his 
 young, brave way, life just opening, also 
 had faith in the ultimate good. He was near 
 to me, and if I write about him at all it must 
 be very plainly and simply. We knew him 
 as Jack, officially he was No. 2585, Private 
 J. M. Hind, the only son of his parents, and 
 my nephew. A lithe, delicate-looking boy, 
 loving the simple give-and-take of life, just 
 a merry English boy, who sang well and 
 danced well, and worked with a lilt. He 
 joined at the beginning of the war; he saw 
 his duty clear; he ran to it as to a sweetheart, 
 and when he was billeted in a nice house he 
 would not sleep in a bed — "because, you 
 know, I must get used to roughing it." The 
 journey to Flanders was a great adventure. 
 Of discomfort, of hardships, he never wrote: 
 his first letter from the trenches was a paean 
 of admiration for some veteran who took 
 him into his care and taught him the new 
 warfare. He proved himself a good soldier. 
 There was talk of a commission, and joy, of 
 
14 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 coming home. We waited. All was well. 
 We should soon see our Soldier-Boy again. 
 The papers were signed, but he fell in the 
 great advance, in the moment of victory. 
 
 Slight frame and lion heart, now merry, 
 now grave — Jack. He had just passed his 
 twentieth birthday when he died for Eng- 
 land, and now he rests somewhere in Flanders 
 ■ — content. Is it so very wrong to envy him? 
 
 One of his last letters tells of a sermon at 
 church parade. The text was "And under- 
 neath are the Everlasting Arms," and the 
 preacher "told us in well-chosen words that, 
 whatever happens, we need never fear death 
 for such a glorious cause, but rather to look 
 upon it as an angel in disguise." The boy 
 added, in his own simple words, "I was fully 
 in agreement with his remarks." 
 
 So this war may enrich. His faith strength- 
 ens our weakness, his sacrifice sanctifies us. 
 Little Jack, or the British Expeditionary 
 Force, was but one of many — so many who 
 have given all, and who are content. In 
 
IT IS WELL 15 
 
 our sorrowful hearts joy begins to glimmer. 
 For we know that it is well with the boys, 
 and with our boy, and, with us, through our 
 love for them. Little Jack, No. 2585, of the 
 British Expeditionary Force: 
 
 Adieu ! 
 
 What need of tears 
 
 Or fears, 
 
 For you? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SENTINEL 
 
 T WAS trying to write — trying. But it 
 * seemed so futile to toy with words, to 
 grope for ideas, when all the world is aflame, 
 and to live we must kill. 
 
 How can one write when the mind is filled 
 with incidents of heroism, of self-sacrifice 
 and horror? Shall we ever forget that in 
 August, 1 9 14, the world suddenly became 
 real, ghastly, magnificent — and life inex- 
 plicable? Yet even as I was trying to see 
 through the blur of blood, something — con- 
 solatory, hopeful — lightened the darkness. 
 What was it? Something in a cherished 
 poem — something about a Sentinel whisper- 
 ing in the deep night. Suddenly the gleam 
 
 vanished. I threw down my pen. Reverie 
 16 
 
THE SENTINEL 17 
 
 was stormed by action. Who can write 
 when he can see, hear, share, even for a 
 moment, in reality, in the splendid side of 
 war? I heard the call of bugles, the tap of 
 drums, and then the little army in the making 
 marched past along the sea-front, and there 
 were cheers, the flashing of handkerchiefs, 
 and a passion of longing to join those youths 
 of England all afire. Many were in civilian 
 clothes. I can never see those boys in their 
 office suits without a catch in the throat. 
 
 They sang. They whistled. The air they 
 whistled was the Marseillaise, and the song 
 they were singing was not Fall In! for that 
 inspiriting recruiting song had already done 
 its fine work for them. They had fallen in, 
 and the song they now sang was It's a long, 
 long way to Tipper ary. Such discord, such 
 delicious discord ! Who can explain why this 
 raw, rough ballad became the marching song 
 of our army? I think I know. One line 
 has made it so — "It's a long, long way to 
 Tipperary" — a line which has a surface 
 
18 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 meaning and an inner meaning into which 
 each soldier can read his own thoughts. It's 
 a long, long way to victory, to the cross on 
 the breast, or the cross on the field of honour, 
 ay! and to the heavenly city some may 
 think — well done, thou good and faithful 
 soldier. Yes, Tipperary you are exalted 
 above all other towns — you with your butter 
 market no miles south-west of Dublin, you 
 who made some stir in the Plan of Campaign 
 of 1890 — you have inspired the marching 
 song of our little army, the made, and in the 
 making. It's a long, long way, little army — 
 but you'll arrive, and our hearts are with you 
 — there. 
 
 They passed on whistling the Marseillaise 
 and singing this song, and through the dear 
 discord I tried to catch the words. I couldn't 
 go on writing ; life has changed. The refrain 
 buzzed in my head. I thought of the last 
 time I had heard it — which was yesterday, 
 hummed by a soldier in a railway carriage. 
 With him I had a little talk. 
 
THE SENTINEL 19 
 
 He was tall, bronzed, and young. He did 
 not read, and I refrained from offering him 
 one of my six newspapers. Clearly his mind 
 was full of great memories, and he hummed 
 that song, and there was thought in his eyes 
 as he sat gazing at the happy English land- 
 scape — so peaceful. I scanned his uniform, 
 but could not place him. His badge was 
 unfamiliar. When we reached our destina- 
 tion, this seaside town, I said as he stepped 
 upon the platform, "Will you tell me your 
 regiment?" "Royal Flying Corps," he 
 answered. "Then you will have some fun," 
 I hazarded. He smiled. "I've just come 
 back. Got my machine smashed up. Come 
 home to get another." He went off some- 
 where, "to get another," and as he went he 
 whistled, " It's a long, long way to Tipperary, 
 it's a long, long way to go . . ." 
 
 He was quite happy. Yes, those who go 
 are the happy ones. It is awful to sit at 
 home at ease, but our hearts are uplifted at 
 the thought of those who have gone, who are 
 
20 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 going, who have come back to get well, and 
 to go again. West of where I sit is a mighty 
 camp. To the east the hill tops are a maze 
 of little forts and barbed-wire entanglements 
 and inland is a hospital filled with wounded. 
 And this is England! And out there, in 
 grim disarray, the battle rages and our men 
 encounter death as a bride, and agony as a 
 friend. I try to write, but all it means, all 
 it may mean, sweeps ever this luckless stay- 
 at-home, and I strive to recall the passage 
 that was trying to console me when I sat 
 down to write. 
 
 Yes, I know it — you know it. It comes to 
 mind, it whispers, and in a moment the cloud 
 lifts. I renounce apprehension and receive 
 with ecstasy the idea of that Sentinel — "Who 
 moves about from place to place, And whis- 
 pers to the worlds of space, In the deep night, 
 that all is well." Yes, " All is well, tho' faith 
 and form Be sunder' d in the night of fear." 
 He moves about, that Sentinel, from place 
 to place — here, in the camp, at the front, in 
 
THE SENTINEL 21 
 
 the homes of those who have died on the field 
 of honour, over the many, many little graves, 
 by the wounded and the lost. They smile, 
 knowing — all is well. 
 
 Right well is it for those who are fighting 
 and training to fight for this dear land. 
 Again I hear the shouts. See, the men are 
 marching back to camp, some in khaki, some 
 in their home clothes, all with heads so high; 
 and hats are raised, and there are cheers, but 
 louder than all in my ears is that delicious 
 discord — the Marseillaise and — 
 
 It's a long, long way to Tipperary, 
 
 It's a long, long way to go; 
 It's a long, long way to Tipperary, 
 
 To the sweetest girl I know ! 
 Good-bye, Piccadilly; 
 
 Farewell, Leicester-square ; 
 It's a long, long way to Tipperary, 
 
 But my heart's right there ! 
 
 No, we don't laugh at the words, and the 
 air to which they are set will never be 
 forgotten while we live. "It's a long, long 
 
22 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 way to Tipperary" — we all know what that 
 means! Brothers, it's a long, long way, 
 strewn with the brave, our beloved, who have 
 died for us ; but we shall be — there. We may 
 not yet see this City of a song, but a light 
 shines above the spires, and the Sentinel is 
 with us all the way. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE UNDYING THINGS 
 
 I\ /I Y friend was a soldier who would will- 
 * " * ingly have been a preacher-painter; 
 but he had no talent. His genius was for 
 friendship. Love guided this pilgrim-soldier. 
 Art he loved, and in her by-ways he found 
 some consolation for his mediocrity. In his 
 leisure time he delighted to lose himself in 
 making minute pen drawings of umbrageous 
 trees, and in copying pictures, such as The 
 Visitation, by "The Master of the Life of 
 Mary," and The Merciful Knight who Forgave 
 his Enemy, by Burne-Jones. Of course he had 
 a vast admiration for Watts. One day he 
 said to me, with his slow, sad smile: "I like 
 Watts because life is greater than art, and 
 Watts, the man, was greater than Watts, 
 23 
 
24 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 the artist." His favourites were The Shud- 
 dering Angel, The Happy Warrior, and Sic 
 Transit Gloria Mundi, of which he made a 
 laborious copy. 
 
 This copy hung in the studio that his 
 mother had built for him in the garden ad- 
 joining her house, and when I chided him for 
 cherishing so sad a theme he said: "That 
 picture is a reminder to me of the Undying 
 Things." 
 
 He died for his country. It was a gallant 
 death. 
 
 Sometimes I think that he might have 
 written the last letter that the soldier in that 
 fine little book called Aunt Sarah and the War 
 wrote to his sweetheart from the front the 
 night before he was killed ; that he might have 
 written the postscript to that letter — one 
 line only — "Remember, dear, that Love out- 
 lasts death." It does, for us, for you, and 
 for me, anyhow. My visit of condolence 
 to his mother was hardly bearable. His 
 sweetheart was there, too. What can one 
 
THE UNDYING THINGS 25 
 
 say? They were so brave. But I think they 
 wanted to be alone. So did I. They let me 
 go into the studio, by myself, for a little while. 
 
 Nothing had been changed, but one white 
 flower had been placed on a table by the side 
 of Sic Transit, which hung on the west wall. 
 It is not a picture that appeals to me; this 
 was not even a good copy, and it gave me no 
 consolation. Anger, I am afraid, was upper- 
 most in my mind, resentment at the waste 
 of life, at the suffering of the innocent, at the 
 misery of the world, at the menace of the 
 future. And as I brooded bitterly somebody 
 seated himself by my side. I did not like 
 this intrusion, and yet it seemed natural. 
 I did not turn my head. I accepted his 
 presence without comment. 
 
 I looked at the shrouded figure of the 
 dead warrior in Watt's picture — awesome, 
 not beautiful — I thought of my friend be- 
 neath the French soil in some unrecorded 
 place, and death seemed hateful, and life a 
 horrid game of chance. My friend was gone 
 
26 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 for evermore. The grey picture grew greyer 
 and sadder in the lessening light. "Why 
 did he like it?" I murmured. 
 
 The Companion by my side, whose pres- 
 ence I felt, without looking at him, answered : 
 "Look at the lettering painted above the 
 dead warrior — three groups of five words 
 each. The first says, 'What I spent I had.' 
 The second says, 'What I saved I lost.' 
 The third says, ' What I gave I have. ' That 
 was why your friend loved this picture, be- 
 cause of these words. They tell of the un- 
 dying things. And you will remember, if 
 you will but soar out of the gloom in which 
 you have allowed yourself to be submerged, 
 that once your friend quoted to you in 
 a letter something that Watts had written 
 about the undying things. It was this — 
 'All that is most real and best in our lives 
 is that which has no material reality — senti- 
 ment, love, honour, patriotism — these con- 
 tinue when the material things pass away.' " 
 
 "Yes, I remember, but are not such sug- 
 
THE UNDYING THINGS 27 
 
 gestions merely a kind of drug to fortify us 
 against the hopelessness of life? Is not this 
 insistence upon the undying things merely 
 an amiable conspiracy to make the living be- 
 lieve that all is well, and to keep them endur- 
 ing to the end. What of his mother and 
 sweetheart? How does his death help them? 
 How does it help me or the world?" 
 
 "You must take wider views," said my 
 Companion. "You must look beyond the 
 present, and yet you need not. What you 
 call death is but the gate of life, and if the 
 newspapers are full of sorrow, gloom, and 
 hatred, they are also full of heroism, sacri- 
 fice, and transfiguring love. The world has 
 discovered no finer destiny than to die for a 
 cause, an ideal, and if we are not allowed thus 
 to die we can accept joyfully what is perhaps 
 more difficult — the daily torture of living 
 for it without capitulation, whatever may be 
 the odds. The undying things are of God — 
 endless, and the world cannot touch them, 
 and he who clings to them overcomes the 
 
28 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 world and uplifts it according to his faith 
 in the undying things. That is what your 
 friend believed. Love outlasts death, and 
 the flame of his love will grow brighter if you 
 will rigorously attune yourself to it. All that 
 was fine in him remains to uplift you and 
 those who loved him." 
 
 "Who are you?" I asked. "It is strange, 
 but all you say I have myself sometimes felt 
 and believed." 
 
 Then my Companion said: "I am you. 
 Not the you of the dark hour. I am the 
 real you. Love outlasts death, and your 
 friend who died is alive always, to rebuild 
 and make permanent the real you — the 
 undying you, which may help others as he 
 is helping you. What he gave you have." 
 
 And I was alone, as I had been, and yet 
 not alone. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 WISDOM 
 
 HPO be a soldier, to be a drop in the great 
 
 * river of effort and sacrifice is not for 
 
 me. But we must all be patient and brave, 
 
 we who are condemned to flounder on at 
 
 home in the sand-clogged delta of that great 
 
 river — watching and waiting. We peer for 
 
 the gleam, we strain to hear the eternal voices; 
 
 we seek wisdom; we look foward to the 
 
 Ultimate Good. 
 
 Unable to be a soldier, I would, if the 
 
 choice were given me, among all those who 
 
 plod through the delta using tongue, pen, or 
 
 pencil, I would choose to be Louis Raemaek- 
 
 ers. This Dutch cartoonist, a real and fine 
 
 artist, this florid, thick-set neutral with the 
 
 full, roving eyes and the quick, virile move- 
 29 
 
30 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 ments, has in his great heart, which is univer- 
 sal, not Dutch, a passion for justice and 
 righteousness, and a hatred and scorn for 
 hypocrisy, brutality, and all the vile misuse 
 of strength connoted by the words — Prussian 
 militarism. His cartoons are done with a 
 decoration of artistic beauty that make the 
 sting and cut of their satire doubly terrible. 
 So I, who have but words for the expression 
 of my feelings, glory in the cartoons of Louis 
 Raemaekers, and gloat over their truth. 
 Had I my will I would gather them all into a 
 book, print a million copies, and scatter them 
 through the neutral and belligerent world. 
 The ancient Hebrews being "uncivilised," 
 had no name for the Eternal Father. The 
 name of names, the name of the Holy of 
 Holies, was not to be mentioned in speech 
 or writing. Nearer than breathing, closer 
 than hands and feet was He, but to be ap- 
 proached only in secret, through the hidden 
 way of the spiritual life. The Prussian, 
 being " civilised," engraves on his helmet 
 
WISDOM 31 
 
 the words Gott mit uns. I rage whenever I 
 see one of those sacrilegious helmets flaunt- 
 ing in a London shop window. But what 
 are words? The clear-seeing Raemaekers 
 has stated all I feel in a cartoon. The 
 Kaiser, a forlorn figure, shouts to the rulers 
 of Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey, who kneel 
 submissively behind him — "At the command 
 'Gott mit uns' you will go for them." Think 
 of our fearless, God-reverencing boys, and 
 be thankful for Raemaekers, a neutral. 
 
 At the exhibition of his cartoons I listen 
 to the comments of the visitors, for it is in- 
 articulate England that will utter the final 
 word about the war. That elderly English 
 clergyman and his wife, with their out-of-the- 
 world air, what do they think of the war, 
 and of Raemaekers' s judgments? They were 
 standing before The Marshes of Pinsk, an 
 autumn landscape showing a flood, and borne 
 down upon it are the many bodies of young 
 dead soldiers. Beneath it is this legend: 
 "The Kaiser said last spring, 'When the 
 
32 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 leaves fall you'll have peace.' They have 
 it." The woman sobbed. "Poor boys, poor 
 boys, ' ' she moaned. ' ' They meant no wrong ; 
 they did but do their duty, like our boy." 
 
 Her husband led her away. They stopped 
 before a sketch of a young Highlander dying 
 on the field of battle. A German pauses 
 before him and touches his body compassion- 
 ately. The boy murmurs with his last 
 breath: "Is it you, mother?" I thought the 
 woman would break down. "Hush," whis- 
 pered her husband. "The souls of the right- 
 eous are in the hand of God. ... In the 
 sight of the unwise they seemed to die — but 
 they are in peace." "Where is that from?" 
 she asked, speaking like one comforted. 
 " Wisdom hi., I," he answered, and furtively 
 slipped his handkerchief into her hand. 
 
 I went out into the frosty streets, and from 
 the clear sky it seemed as if a voice was 
 repeating what the old man has said: "In 
 the sight of the unwise they seemed to die — 
 but they are in peace." I knew the words, 
 
WISDOM 33 
 
 but whence came they? Who said them? 
 What is wisdom? We know it when it comes 
 — that is all. I looked up to the flying 
 clouds, and had the vision of which John Hay 
 wrote, of the Everlasting Angels who hover 
 above us, knowing everything, judging every- 
 thing, telling the truth about everything. 
 It seemed that if I could once get away from 
 the streets and the crowds and the babble, 
 there must be some place, within or without, 
 where I could commune with those Ever- 
 lasting Angels, perhaps our own particular 
 Guardian Angels, and learn from them wis- 
 dom and remember it always. Who gave us 
 the wisdom to know that our beloved who 
 
 are gone are in peace? Who . 
 
 All of us, even in ecstatic moments, are 
 still of the earth, loving the spectacle of 
 bright heroic things; and I, suddenly, at the 
 sight of a corps of Flying Men swinging 
 down the street, forget everything but them. 
 These gay and jaunty bird-like men with 
 their dandy caps, their tight uniforms, and 
 
34 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 their air of responsible irresponsibility, are 
 the new note of the war. They are like no 
 other soldiers; they are not of the earth; 
 the stars are their counsellors; they have 
 taken on the freedom of the air, the unfet- 
 tered mystery of space, and, in doing so, 
 they have become quick and alert and re- 
 mote like birds. The stupid streets are not 
 for them; their home is towards the stars; 
 they soar; they consort with the Everlasting 
 Angels, who watch and talk gravely, with 
 infinite wisdom, of our poor doings. O, to 
 be a Bird Man to rise higher and higher, 
 away from chatter and error to where the 
 great heart of wisdom waits! Then, in a 
 flash, knowledge came to me. The thought 
 of the Bird Men and their untram- 
 melled flight into space cleared my muddy 
 brain. Wisdom iii., i. Why, of course, the 
 old man was quoting from the Wisdom of 
 Solomon. 
 
 I went home, found Wisdom iii., I, and 
 read — "But the souls of the righteous are in 
 
WISDOM 35 
 
 the hand of God, and there shall no torment 
 touch them. In the sight of the unwise they 
 seemed to die; and their departure is taken 
 for misery, and their going from us to be 
 utter destruction; but they are in peace." 
 
 Then I turned to the first chapter of Wis- 
 dom and read — "For froward hearts sepa- 
 rate from God." . . . "For the Spirit of the 
 Lord filleth the world." . . . "For God 
 made not death; neither hath He pleasure 
 in the destruction of the living." . . . "For 
 wisdom is a loving spirit." 
 
 I lowered the lights and opened the window 
 to a great night of stars, peace, and the pres- 
 ence of our angels, our dear ones, everlasting 
 and intimate, whom we knew on earth, and 
 whom we will know again. All was well, 
 for it was plain that, whatever man may do, 
 wisdom had spoken. And He will carry on, 
 not in the helmet, in the heart. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 TO A SUBALTERN 
 
 VfOU read an article of mine called "Wis- 
 dom" ; you sent me a brief letter about 
 it, which touched me more than I can say. 
 It was modest and frank ; soldier-like, it faced 
 squarely your gleam of the vision beautiful. 
 You gave no address, no name; you signed 
 yourself simply "Yours gratefully, Subal- 
 tern/' and the only knowledge I have about 
 you is your statement that you are a soldier 
 "who has seen some service in Flanders." 
 That is enough. Dear friend, never tell me 
 anything more. I intend to cherish the idea 
 that you, unknown to me, are of the kin of 
 St. George and St. Denis, and that wherever 
 you are, whatever your lot, you belong to 
 
 those over whom death cannot prevail. You 
 36 
 
TO A SUBALTERN 37 
 
 fight the good fight against evil, you are on 
 the side of the spiritual man who wants 
 nothing, against the material man who de- 
 mands everything. You fight for Christ 
 against the devil, for St. George against the 
 dragon, for love against hate. Remember 
 always those grave, gracious words of truth 
 that Romain Rolland has uttered: "For the 
 finer spirits of Europe there are two dwelling- 
 places; our earthly fatherland, and that other 
 City of God. To the one let us give our lives 
 and our faithful hearts; but neither family, 
 friend, nor fatherland, nor aught that we love, 
 has power over spirit . The spi rit is the Light . ' ' 
 You will fight cleanly and dauntlessly, 
 you will take no thought of self. Let me 
 tell you that to be a soldier, nowadays, is to 
 be one of the great army of the consecrated, 
 so human, so dear, of whom sometimes we 
 have a hurried glimpse, laden with their 
 battered accoutrements, spattered with the 
 mud of Flanders, laughing and singing songs; 
 and some are grave, our soldier-stalwarts, so 
 
38 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 human, so dear, who have enlisted in the 
 cause of righteousness, to whom the White 
 Comrade is a reality and victory a sure event. 
 You, my subaltern, will fight valiantly, but 
 in your heart there is a little trouble, a natural 
 longing. In your communication you say: 
 — "If my letter conveys to you the earnest 
 desire that men have, for the spiritual reasons 
 for their part in this war to be sustained 
 and impressed upon them, I shall not have 
 written in vain." 
 
 It is hard, I know, soldier, to be conscious 
 always that behind the brutality and stupid- 
 ity of war the lights of the City of the Soul 
 shine unquenchable; because they shine you 
 must fight, and keep their glow in your heart 
 while your body contends for England, her 
 homes and village greens, and for the child- 
 ren who will be England when we have 
 passed on. He who fights for freedom fights 
 for England, and he who dies for England 
 dwells in God with those who made our land 
 and in our protection left it. 
 
TO A SUBALTERN 39 
 
 The war rages. "Nothing the same," cry 
 our publicists, "now and henceforth." That 
 is true of the material world. But in the 
 spiritual world the whisper is "Everything 
 the same" to-day and for ever. Nothing, 
 neither principalities, nor powers, neither 
 suffering nor sorrow, neither victory nor 
 defeat can quench, if your heart wills, one 
 flicker of your spiritual life. It is always 
 silently accompanying the real You, always 
 your very own. The flame cannot be seen, 
 so we make symbols of it for our comfort; 
 they are but symbols, and it is you alone who 
 can fan the flame. 
 
 It is hard, soldier, in the awfulness of this 
 war, to keep the flame of the spiritual life 
 steadily burning without fuss and without 
 talk; but this, the greatest of all life's adven- 
 tures, has got to be carried through to victory. 
 The prize, the crown, like the Victoria Cross, 
 is valueless, yet beyond price. Win that 
 and we shall win the other crown against 
 our material enemy. Love turns his head 
 
40 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 away from the lust for power and domination 
 to be won at any cost, but love will prevail 
 through simple art of loving to the end, 
 and because love is eternal, spiritual, and 
 the other is temporal, material. This is 
 the Christmas season when we venerate the 
 obeisance of the pomp and power of the world 
 to Undying Love, and the custom will never 
 cease, because it holds an immortal truth. 
 You may have seen those small, grave pic- 
 tures of The Adoration of the Magi, by the 
 nameless masters of the Rhine valley, who 
 live only as the "Master of the Life of Mary," 
 the " Master of the Holy Kinship," and other 
 holy and humble titles cloaking these un- 
 f or gotten Teutons, to whom the spiritual 
 was more real than the material. Therefore 
 the mystics of the Rhine valley will live and 
 move when Prussianism has followed into 
 the darkness other ugly dreams. 
 
 Well, in the collection of cartoons by 
 Raemaekers there is just such a picture. It 
 is in quiet, tender colours, and at first sight 
 
TO A SUBALTERN 41 
 
 it might be a rendering of The Adoration of 
 the Magi, wrought by a primitive painter, 
 some mystic of the Rhine or the Meuse val- 
 leys, in lonely ecstasy. But look closer. 
 You perceive that the grim King who kneels 
 is the Kaiser ; his offer is a menacing, shining 
 shell. The second King is the Austrian 
 Emperor; his offering is a model of a Maxim 
 gun. The third is the Sultan of Turkey; 
 his offering is a blood-stained, curling knife. 
 And the Child to whom these twentieth cen- 
 tury offerings are made, on the eve of the 
 holy Christmas season, by the rulers of the 
 material world — the Child, Undying Love, 
 turns away in tears and hides His face in 
 His Mother's bosom. 
 
 It is your lot, soldier, your high privilege, 
 to dry those tears, to turn the face of Un- 
 dying Love again to the tormented race of 
 man with the smile of understanding, com- 
 passion, and healing. The task is hard, 
 soldier, and yet very easy if we but remember 
 that although material power seems to domi- 
 
42 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 nate the world — that is not so. We must 
 fight this material menace of greed and wil- 
 ful destruction, using our utmost efforts to 
 vanquish and crush it; but it is from the 
 hidden seed of the spiritual world, here 
 around us, in our hearts, that victory will 
 blossom. Fight the good fight with clear 
 brain and strong right arm, but remember 
 also that the final triumph (the coming of 
 the Kingdom of God, as well as the defeat of 
 the enemy of God) draws nearer each time 
 you deny the passing supremacy of evil and 
 affirm the eternity of good. Every heroic, 
 self-denying act in this war is an expression 
 of good — God: every victory in your own 
 heart and nature, each choice you make of 
 the spiritual over the material, each sacrifice 
 of the individual for the great cause will help 
 to dry that Child's tears, lessen the misery 
 of this man-made war, and bring us nearer 
 to our rightful and real home, that spiritual 
 kingdom where Good reigns, where there is 
 no sense of evil, for Love has won. 
 
TO A SUBALTERN 43 
 
 We dare much in the material world — you 
 soldiers dare everything. We must also 
 dare much in our search for the spiritual 
 world, and be unafraid. It is hard, I know, 
 soldier, to keep the flame alive, but I pray 
 you burn it bravely, unseen but eager, know- 
 ing that no material blast can ever quench 
 it. "Why did the lamp go out?" asked the 
 sage. "I shaded it with my cloak, to save 
 it from the wind," answered the student. 
 
 Remember, soldier, that there is no wind, 
 however wild, can darken your lamp if you 
 are as fearless in the spiritual world as you 
 are in the material. My heart, unseen, fol- 
 lows you through your ordeal. Dry the 
 tears of that Child, my soldier, before another 
 Christmas dawns. Our prayers enfold you, 
 our confidence encompasses you. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SENSITIVE 
 
 TT is not well to be a Sensitive in these days. 
 * Neither his apprehension nor his poetry 
 is needed. He is unhappy, being a Sensitive 
 — worse, he is apt to be useless. The world 
 needs optimism, the conviction that right 
 will prevail, and a faith that no assaults can 
 weaken. It is exhilarating to talk with a 
 Soldier; it is sad to listen to a Sensitive. Yet 
 the Sensitive with whom I chatted yesterday 
 finally exhilarated me, after he had stum- 
 bled to a resolution (which I hope he will 
 keep). 
 
 The afternoon was grey and gusty. I was 
 standing in a windy place watching a com- 
 pany, who are too old to join the new Army, 
 drilling for home defence. It was splendid. 
 44 
 
THE SENSITIVE 45 
 
 They were carrying on. Some were over 
 sixty, many were bald-headed and large of 
 girth, and as they drilled they panted and 
 perspired. It was difficult for some of them 
 to stoop, but they went through all the evo- 
 lutions gallantly. Their spirit conquered 
 their distress. One was a writer (he had 
 also been a grandfather for years), who, in 
 the happy times of peace, would be seated, 
 at this hour, before his library table sur- 
 rounded by a zareba of reference books. 
 Now he finds himself clad in a white sweater, 
 doubling round a quadrangle, listening not 
 to the hesitant voice of the Muse, but to the 
 sharp word of command. I saluted him. 
 He smiled. I felt ennobled. His country 
 had called, and he was " doing his bit" for 
 England. I thought of Henley's poem — 
 Henley who should have lived to see this 
 day — that sight, those elderly men forcing 
 their time-worn bodies to be soldierlike, for 
 England. But Henley was there in spirit. 
 The dead do not forsake us, and to my heart 
 
46 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 from somewhere came his poem — "What have 
 I done for you, England, my England?" 
 
 A little later I spoke the lines aloud, for 
 the Sensitive (he is under forty) suddenly 
 appeared at my side. I waved towards 
 squad D and said: 
 
 What have I done for you, 
 
 England, my England? 
 What is there I would not do, 
 
 England, my own? 
 
 They call you proud and hard, 
 
 England, my England: 
 You with words to watch and ward, 
 
 England, my own ! 
 
 Ever the faith endures, 
 
 England, my England: — 
 Take and break us; we are yours, 
 
 England, my own! 
 
 I couldn't go on with the poem. 
 
 The Sensitive's eyes filled with tears. 
 That is one of the many disadvantages of 
 being a Sensitive. The tears come so readily. 
 
THE SENSITIVE 47 
 
 The Sensitive spoke. "I've been doing 
 indoor work — helping to organise — but I'm 
 not a good organiser, and I never quite 
 grasped what we were organising. I'm 
 afraid I was rather in the way. I'm super- 
 fluous. I can't settle to anything. This 
 awful war weighs on me like a disease. I 
 envy the soldiers. I envy the dead. I envy 
 all who have escaped this cataclysm. I 
 want to help, but my little gift, my verses, 
 which are my moments of insight, don't 
 come now. Yet the poets have their place 
 — haven't they? Henley was lame. He 
 couldn't have fought; he couldn't have 
 drilled. Yet that poem of his, that message 
 from the past, is an inspiration to-day. He 
 lives still; he still encourages us. Shall I go 
 down to the camps and recite England, my 
 England to the troops? Or shall I join this 
 company here and drill? I feel sometimes 
 that I could do anything so long as it is not 
 clerical work or organising. I want harden- 
 ing; I want to escape from myself." 
 
48 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 We went home by the Tube, and for two 
 stations he moaned over the state of this 
 unpardonable world. "England, my Eng- 
 land," he murmured, "to think of it, the 
 only way to preserve you is to kill Germans. 
 Logically, that's the only thing to do, and 
 this in the year of our Lord 191 6. But for 
 those who are not called to kill Germans or 
 to succour Belgians I suppose the next best 
 thing is to go on doing our nearest duty just 
 as well as we can." 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "A man helped me last night," continued 
 the Sensitive. "I called upon him at a late 
 hour, and found him engrossed at his desk. 
 'What are you doing?' I asked. He dis- 
 sembled. I insisted. At last he said — 
 'When the war broke out I concentrated in 
 my leisure time, on the most difficult and 
 most arduous piece of work that I could 
 invent. I forced my mind to control the 
 whims of my body.' That man's example 
 helped me," said the Sensitive. "He had 
 
THE SENSITIVE 49 
 
 chosen the hardest duty, and was doing it 
 with set teeth." 
 
 Suddenly the Sensitive clutched my arm. 
 The train was at a station. "Look," he 
 cried, indicating a placard on which was dis- 
 played this announcement — "Join the Volun- 
 teer Reserve for his Majesty's Fleet. Apply 
 the Commanding Officer, R.N.V.R., Head- 
 quarters, Commercial-road." 
 
 He was silent for awhile. The soul of 
 him was working. 
 
 "I hate the sea," said the Sensitive. The 
 words exploded from him. "I loathe ma- 
 chinery, the mere idea of submarines appals 
 me, but I'll do it. I'll join the Volunteer 
 Reserve. I will. God help me." 
 
 I looked into his eyes. Verily I believe 
 that he had taken his resolution, that he had 
 chosen his "hardest duty, and would set his 
 teeth to it." 
 
 Later his imagination began to play around 
 the extremes of his destiny. I do not think 
 he quailed, but he saw the worst, not the 
 
50 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 best. You cannot cease being a Sensitive 
 instantly. 
 
 "In the wintry sea," he said, "with per- 
 haps half my body blown away, I would like 
 to shout with my mouth if that be still intact, 
 'Take and break us: we are yours, England, 
 my own.' That would be the heroic part 
 of me, so long obscured; but my heart, the 
 faithful heart of my mother, in me, would 
 long to cry out to the broken bits of men 
 struggling in the water — 'Little children, in 
 spite of all this horror, in spite of the heaped- 
 up agony of the world, it is true, essential 
 truth, that "God is love, and he that dwell- 
 eth in love dwelleth in God and God in him." 
 The victory is yours, little children. ' I 
 should like that to be the last utterance of 
 an obscure sailorman to the world in these 
 days, when England's sons find it necessary 
 to offer their lives, not for conquest, but for 
 an Ideal." 
 
 The Sensitive ceased. I am sure he meant 
 what he said. And because he meant it, 
 
THE SENSITIVE 51 
 
 because it was his moment of insight, what- 
 ever his fate may be, quick death or splendid 
 life, that statement of unassailable faith, in 
 a moment of insight, of escape from self, 
 may be his "bit," his message — so old, so 
 young, so faded, so fresh — to the uncon- 
 querable soul of our determined race, plodding 
 grimly but gaily to Victory. 
 
 Ever the faith endures, 
 England, my England. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE QUIET ROOM 
 
 A GAIN a poem has been eluding, yet 
 ** comforting me. How does it run, and 
 who wrote it? Memory will not recall that 
 poem of consolation born of the spirit. You 
 may be sure that it was very simple, and 
 sincere, for in these times all else irritates. 
 It was as simple and sincere as Lord Roberts's 
 message to the world (almost his last) given 
 through a friend. "We must do what we 
 consider to be our duty — then we are in 
 God's hands." The poem and the poet will 
 
 recur to me soon, I am sure. Meanwhile . 
 
 Banishing the idea of the poem, I returned 
 to what I had been doing, which was some- 
 thing quite unheroic. I had been turning 
 
 the pages of the illustrated weekly journals. 
 52 
 
THE QUIET ROOM 53 
 
 In a little while I closed them, put the jour- 
 nals away, hid them. I could not endure to 
 look at the portraits of those who have died 
 on the field of honour for our homes, for us, 
 for England. They look so young, so hope- 
 ful, so gallant. O yes, we envy them! We 
 cannot help it. We may be giving our best, 
 our poor best, but they have given every- 
 thing. And nothing shall ever wrest from 
 me — neither reason, nor argument, nor sor- 
 row — the assurance that "They who die for 
 England sleep with God." 
 
 Happily, most of those who go out to 
 fight carry through the ordeal with a light 
 heart. I have never met an unhappy or an 
 apprehensive soldier, and their letters from 
 the front inspire in us gratitude, wonder, 
 and relief. I read and re-read the following, 
 written by a cavalry subaltern who had been 
 in the trenches five days and nights, with 
 shrapnel coming about two shells a minute: 
 "It is all the best fun. I've never felt so 
 well or so happy or enjoyed anything so 
 
54 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 much, and so does everybody. The fighting 
 excitement vitalises everything, every sight, 
 and word, and action.* ' 
 
 Is it not wonderful? Truly it is some con- 
 solation to us, waiting wearily at home, ach- 
 ing for them, to know that our brothers can 
 encounter horror with such intrepidity. The 
 soldier is not introspective. He is under 
 orders; he has something definite to do, and 
 he does it dashingly. Yes, we may envy 
 him, and if he dies quickly it is we who suffer. 
 "Ours the pain. But his, oh, his the un- 
 diminished gladness, the undecaying glory, 
 the undeparted dream." It was R. L. 
 Stevenson who wrote that before the war. 
 It seems so long ago. That is the dividing 
 line in our lives now — before and since the 
 war. It pounds on. The world shakes. 
 Our lives are changed and reformed. Many 
 are glad to be alive in such an amazing period. 
 The bereaved meet their losses with forti- 
 tude, and with an inner joy that will rise, 
 as time passes, like a spring, for they know 
 
THE QUIET ROOM 55 
 
 that they have given their beloved for their 
 country. What reward could be too great 
 for those who have died on the field of hon- 
 our? In our poor human tongue I can think 
 of no fuller expression of all we hope for them, 
 than that line, "They who die for England 
 sleep with God." Each of the living, in his 
 own soul, can give his own meaning to those 
 words. 
 
 Yesterday I visited a London hospital to 
 see a wounded officer. I found my friend, 
 mending slowly, but he could not move. It 
 was quiet, in the ward only the hushed voices 
 of the visitors, but there was one youth 
 moaning near by. A shadow passed over my 
 friend's face. I said to him: "Do the cries 
 of that poor fellow upset you ? " " Oh, no," he 
 answered, " I was thinking of — you." After 
 he had told me how he had been wounded 
 I asked if he slept well. He replied: 
 "Not at first. I had awful nightmares, 
 heard the bursting shrapnel, thought I was 
 back in the trenches, and awoke to see those 
 
56 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 flowers on the table." He smiled — a smile 
 of quiet happiness. His uniform hung at 
 the bed-head, on the other side were the 
 flowers, strewn over the quilt was a litter of 
 papers. This soldier, now briefly at rest, 
 was, for the first time, following the course 
 of the war. He talked of getting well, of 
 joining his comrades at the front again. He 
 was a religious man, Life to him was duty. 
 I thought of Lord Roberts's words — the creed 
 of the Happy Warrior — "We must do what 
 we consider to be our duty — then we are in 
 God's hands." 
 
 That night I sat in my room reflecting on 
 those wounded ofhcers at the hospital, and 
 rejoicing in their respite of peace, each in his 
 quiet room. And, as I reflected, the poem 
 that had been eluding yet comforting me 
 suddenly came to mind, and I knew that it 
 was by the Quaker poet Whittier, whose 
 simple verses have comforted innumerable 
 
THE QUIET ROOM 57 
 
 harassed souls. This poem was called The 
 Meeting; 
 
 And so I find it well to come 
 
 For deeper rest to this still room; 
 
 For here the habit of the soul 
 
 Feels less the outer world's control; 
 
 And from the silence multiplied 
 
 By these still forms on every side, 
 
 The world that time and sense have known 
 
 Falls off, and leaves us God alone. 
 
 Most moderns have foregone the beneficial 
 habit of meditation, but in these times how 
 salutary it is for us to retire into the Quiet 
 Room for a little while. All becomes plain 
 and sane again. 
 
 The world that time and sense have known, 
 Falls off, and leaves us God alone. 
 
 God grant that it may be so to many! I 
 sit here in the Quiet Room. I can bear now 
 to think of those who have fallen, and in this 
 moment of initiation I feel encouraged to 
 
58 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 change one word in that line from a poem 
 which I have already written down. I would 
 change it into — "Those who die for England 
 wake with God." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 JUNE JOY 
 
 T TE was home — wounded. His bed was 
 * A in the last of the cubicles at the end 
 of the long corridor- ward of the Hospital. 
 In each bed was a man, and there were groans 
 and cries. Sometimes I feared that I could 
 never reach the end of that corridor without 
 fainting ; but the thought of my friend, a mere 
 boy, who flinched neither from the pain of his 
 wound, nor from the daily probing, sustained 
 me. One day his eyes motioned to something 
 I had written for a morning paper. It was 
 lying on the coverlet. "Read it," he whis- 
 pered. I did so. "Too sad," he said. "I 
 don't want to hear about the war. I want 
 the old days. I want to hear about flowers, 
 and poetry, and how the country looks in 
 
 59 
 
60 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 June." So, next day, when I called, I read 
 him this, written in the happy Before. 
 
 Calling upon my friend Roger at that hour 
 of mystery, a June twilight, I found him in 
 rueful mood. Something had distressed this 
 invalid author. Yet, he should be happy. 
 His latest book, I may whisper to you, won 
 the prize (a bound volume of Notes and 
 Queries) for the prettiest dedication of the 
 year. It ran: "To Hetty — she knows why." 
 
 The lamps were unlighted in his sitting- 
 room where I found Hetty trying with neat 
 fingers, to unravel the string of a dumpy 
 brown paper parcel. This couple belong 
 to the class of string preservers. Roger, 
 stretched on a couch, worried and weary, was 
 watching Hetty. 
 
 "What is it?" I asked, for Roger carries 
 his joy or his grief on his face, conspicuous 
 as a gala flag. 
 
 "I've just paid two pounds and sixpence 
 
JUNE JOY 61 
 
 to a taxi-cab driver for sheer pleasure. The 
 extravagance of it lacerates me." 
 
 " Perhaps it was worth while," I remarked. 
 
 "Yes! A thousand times over and over 
 again," cried Hetty. "Oh, Roger, what is 
 two pounds and sixpence for this day of joy! 
 Think of the light, and the flowers, the warm 
 winds, the glorious trees ; think of the Thames 
 from Richmond Hill; think of the peace of 
 Ham Common ; think of the gratification of 
 the driver when you paid him two pounds and 
 sixpence. He gets a quarter of it for himself, 
 and he has seven children. Think of " 
 
 Here Uncle Ben, who was expected to 
 supper, entered the room, having, I am sure, 
 overheard Hetty's rush of words. He sank 
 heavily into a chair, and said ominously: 
 "I've come from Richmond by 'bus — three 
 'buses. Proceed, Hetty." 
 
 She rearranged the rug over Roger's knees, 
 and began: "It all came about by chance. 
 Roger and I are not taxi people, but this 
 morning, on the way home from marketing, 
 
62 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 I saw a driver in a beautifully clean holland 
 overall polishing the brass work of his cab, 
 doing it lovingly. I nearly stopped. (Hetty 
 is not very young.) I did stop, and boldly 
 asked him what preparation he was using. 
 He told me; he also told me that it was, in a 
 way, his own cab, as he is a member of a little 
 company of twenty-two men owning seven 
 cabs. They receive 25 per cent, of the tak- 
 ings, and pay for the petrol. His accent 
 was educated, and (Hetty blushed) he sug- 
 gested that it was a perfect day for a run to 
 Richmond Park. Don't look cross, Uncle. 
 Business was in his mind, not gallantry. 
 Would you believe it, Roger had never 
 been to Richmond Park, and he can't walk 
 much; and his last birthday — oh! I forgot 
 it." 
 
 "Well?" said Uncle Ben. 
 
 "I gave the man our address, and told 
 him to call at 3 p.m. I never thought about 
 the cost. It did not seem possible that any- 
 body could ever pay more than five shillings 
 
JUNE JOY 63 
 
 for a cab fare, or go farther than from Hamp- 
 stead to Charing Cross in holiday time. He 
 came. The cab was brand new. We started. 
 the rapture of gliding through the greenery 
 of the Park from Bayswater to Kensington 
 this perfect June day! 
 
 "To sit for the first time in a new motor, 
 to skim through the world in perfect comfort, 
 everything forgotten in the mere joy of seeing 
 — Uncle, it's heaven ! We reached Hammer- 
 smith in a dream — that awful eddy of traffic 
 by the Broadway, usually an agony, was now 
 a gay spectacle. We were at peace, every- 
 body else in turmoil . I felt so selfish, yet so 
 happy. Then the vistas of shining water 
 from Hammersmith Bridge ! You loved that, 
 Roger! I knew you did, because you at 
 once wanted to declaim poetry. You pulled 
 from your pocket your book of the moment 
 — Faber's hymns, in the tattered brown- 
 paper cover — and all across Barnes Common 
 you crooned your favourites. It all seemed 
 so true, didn't it, dear? We swept on, in 
 
64 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 radiance, in harmony, in hope — one with 
 Faber when he sang: 
 
 For the Love of God is broader 
 Than the measure of man's mind; 
 
 And the heart of the Eternal 
 Is most wonderfully kind. 
 
 Soon we found the world again — in the bright 
 traffic of the Richmond Road. Then the 
 turn into Priory Lane, and, through the 
 trees, glimpses of the polo players. O 
 strength! O rushing movements! O danc- 
 ing colours ! O youth tingling with the joy of 
 action ! happy, happy youth ! " (Hetty is 
 no mean poet, and a great favourite in one of 
 the most advanced circles of T. P's. Weekly.) 
 "And so to our goal — Richmond Park. 
 Ecstasy was that sweep round to Robin 
 Hood Gate! Masses of rhododendrons, 
 glimpses of distant water, oak-trees and 
 tawny deer, young bracken, and the infinity 
 of rolling green, — up, up, higher, higher, till 
 we reached the topmost plateau, and there, 
 
JUNE JOY 65 
 
 outstretched, swooning in light, was the rich 
 Thames Valley, and beyond, losing themselves 
 in the heat- drenched haze, the soft encircling 
 hills." 
 
 Uncle Ben placed a lozenge in his mouth, 
 and masticated it vociferously. "Gas!" 
 I could almost hear him say. 
 
 "We surrendered ourselves to the chauf- 
 feur," mumbled Roger. "I felt like a child 
 taken by his governess for a holiday jaunt. 
 He patronised us; he indicated the course of 
 the Thames, feeling for its level through the 
 valley. Then he said peremptorily: 'You 
 must see Ham Common.' " 
 
 4 'Is there anything more beautiful?" asked 
 Hetty. 
 
 "I shall always associate Ham Common 
 with Strindberg," said Roger. 
 
 Uncle Ben, who was becoming a little 
 fidgety signalled a "Why?" 
 
 Hetty smiled, and said: "We swept down 
 through a lovely glade, out of the little lonely 
 gate, and, would you believe it? we drove 
 
66 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 five times round the Common. We could 
 not leave it. Peace had descended upon 
 the world — peace and harmony, and even a 
 glimpse of No. 101 motor-bus pounding back 
 to the Strand did not disturb our tranquillity. 
 At the beginning of the sixth round we 
 stopped. I wanted to be alone for a few 
 minutes in the quiet church. When I re- 
 turned I found that Roger had just finished 
 reading a four-column notice of the life and 
 works of Strindberg in the Nation. There 
 never was such a man as Roger for carrying 
 books and papers with him." 
 
 "Yes," said Roger, "and henceforward 
 I'm saved from reading anything by Strind- 
 berg. The duty menaced me. I dreaded 
 it, shrank from the sloughs of disharmony, 
 and, lo! a quotation of four words in that 
 review saves me from muddling myself over 
 Strindberg. Why should I bother about the 
 excursions into materiality of his tormented 
 intellect, his search for the path, for, on his 
 deathbed he reached the point of enlighten- 
 
JUNE JOY 67 
 
 ment which might have been his when he 
 toddled from his child's crib.'' 
 
 "And that was?" said Uncle Ben. 
 
 "On his deathbed, Strindberg held up the 
 Bible, and said: 'This alone is right.' " 
 
 "As an impresario," continued Hetty, 
 "our driver was a genius. He insisted on 
 our visiting Richmond Hill for the view, and 
 without more ado whirled us thither. Then 
 he transported us back through the Park — 
 silent trees, golden light, and the hush of 
 eve — out into the Kingston Road, and up, 
 over a surface smooth as a sheet of glass, 
 to Wimbledon Common. But this fatherly 
 driver had not finished with us yet. He 
 whirled us to the Windmill; he dodged here 
 and there over the Common, skirted a road 
 bordered with comfortable houses, half- 
 hidden in trees, to Putney Hill, and, would 
 you believe it, not until we were delayed by 
 the traffic on Putney Bridge did either of us 
 look at the dial. We looked. It was awful ! " 
 
 "We awoke from our dream," said Roger. 
 
68 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 "No, no!" cried Hetty. "There was still 
 the Embankment, with the life of the river, 
 the swirl of the water, and the glory of the 
 light transfiguring the buildings into fairy 
 palaces; there was still the majesty of West- 
 minster, the peacocks and strange fowl strut- 
 ting on the sward by the water in the Green 
 Park; there was still the Mall, straight, 
 spacious, sunny, and the old Palace of St. 
 James's (all the wonder of London on a June 
 evening) , and the blaze of flowers behind the 
 railings of Park Lane; then home to hold for 
 ever the amassed memories of this perfect 
 day in June." 
 
 "One pound eighteen on the dial, and half 
 a crown tip, making two pounds and six- 
 pence," said Roger, gloomily. 
 
 There was silence in the quiet room. 
 Hetty took the dumpy brown-paper parcel 
 from the chair where she had placed it, and 
 again began to unravel the string. This 
 time she succeeded. It contained three 
 books, crown 8vo, buckram, gilt — beautiful 
 
JUNE JOY 69 
 
 books — and on the cover of each was a golden 
 wreath of thorns and laurel, with the words: 
 The Works of Francis Thompson; Verse and 
 Prose. 
 
 I glanced at Uncle Ben. In his thirst for 
 culture he had, I had reason to know, because 
 it was at my instigation, once agonized over 
 The Bound of Heaven. 
 
 Uncle Ben took the first volume in his mas- 
 sive hand, and, as his fingers fluttered through 
 the pages, he said, slowly: "I prefer Faber 
 because I can understand him. He is sane 
 and wholesome. So far as I am concerned 
 Francis Thompson's poetry might be written 
 in a foreign tongue. The meaning escapes 
 me, sir, and I am not supposed to be a fool. 
 I like poetry that you can learn by heart, and 
 repeat to yourself when inclined." 
 
 I began to be nervous, for Roger is an 
 ardent Thompsonian, but my apprehension 
 was allayed by a sudden light that flickered 
 into Uncle Ben's eyes, a gleam of the fine old 
 sporting instinct that is one of his pleasant- 
 
70 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 est attributes. Addressing Hetty, he said: 
 44 I'll make you a bet," and, with a chuckle, 
 "you needn't pay me if you lose. I'll close 
 my eyes and put my finger on a chance page 
 in this first volume, and Hetty, if you'll 
 learn that page by heart in ten minutes I'll 
 refund the two pounds and sixpence you 
 spent on your Joy Ride." 
 
 Dump went his finger upon a page, his 
 watch flashed from its fob, the book was 
 handed to Hetty, and, for ten minutes, 
 the tenseness of the silence was almost 
 unbearable. 
 
 "Time's up," cried Uncle Ben, taking the 
 book. Whereupon the admirable Hetty re- 
 peated, without a fault, the poem called 
 Love and the Child, on which Uncle Ben's 
 finger had rested. In her clear voice she 
 recited: 
 
 Why do you so clasp me, 
 And draw me to your knee? 
 Forsooth, you do but chafe me, 
 I pray you let me be: 
 
JUNE JOY 71 
 
 I will but be loved now and then 
 When it liketh me! 
 
 So I heard a young child, 
 A thwart child, a young child, 
 Rebellious against love's arms, 
 Make its peevish cry. 
 
 To the tender God I turn : — 
 "Pardon, Love most High! 
 For I think those arms were even Thine, 
 And that child was even I." 
 
 Uncle Ben paid up immediately — the odd 
 sixpence in coppers. He is indeed a true 
 " sport." As we sat down to supper Hetty 
 murmured: "This has been perfect joy — 
 this day of June." Roger assented. Uncle 
 Ben grunted. I smiled. 
 
 The wounded soldier boy smiled, too. " Is 
 Hetty very nice?" he asked. 
 "Yes," I answered. 
 
 "You might bring her to see me," he said. 
 Then he smiled again. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE VISION SPLENDID 
 
 I SAT in Hyde Park waiting for the soldiers. 
 1 There was to be a march past, I had been 
 told, with the bag-pipes, tooting Blue Bonnets 
 over the Border, the drums banging, and the 
 fifes asking shrilly, "What does he know of 
 England who only England knows?" We 
 were to see the soldier boys swinging away 
 to camp, for the eve of their departure for 
 the front had come. So I sat in Hyde Park 
 waiting for the — soldiers. 
 
 The three ragged little girls mothering 
 two babies were also waiting. Silent and 
 solemn, they were seated on the grass in 
 front of the Serpentine bathing-place. The 
 policeman on duty by the diving-boards was 
 
 also waiting. He watched, and he was eyed 
 
 72 
 
THE VISION SPLENDID 73 
 
 by a horde of ragamuffin boys. They, too, 
 were waiting. It was a quarter before six, 
 and not until the hour struck would the 
 policeman move from the water's edge and 
 allow the boys to rush to their evening dip. 
 Each was prepared for the supreme moment ; 
 each had cast all his rags away except breeches 
 and braces, and each — there were half a 
 hundred of them — was shouting and playing 
 — waiting noisily. 
 
 Ugh! The sight of the boys was cheerful 
 enough. But why were they not Scouts? 
 I thought of a Boy Scout who had called at 
 my house to solicit a small sum for a concert. 
 "And how are you going on?" I asked. 
 "Fine," he answered, and drawing himself 
 up proudly: "Five of us have been killed 
 already." Life, Death, O Time! "Wis- 
 dom contemplating mankind," said a great 
 writer, "is filled with pity and disdain." But 
 God understands. 
 
 Those ragamuffin boys, who should have 
 been Scouts, were beginning life; their state 
 
74 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 of rags and poverty was powerless to affect 
 their joy in the moment; they lived in the 
 present, the future threw no shadow; it had 
 not begun. But when I turned in my chair 
 and faced towards the park I saw on a bank, 
 sitting and dozing in the sunshine, a score or 
 so of vagrants, old, middle-aged, and young 
 men, some making a meal off broken bits of 
 food which they had brought with them 
 wrapped in newspapers, others mending 
 their tattered clothes, each engrossed with 
 his poor self — apathetic, indifferent to the 
 world except as a place from which suste- 
 nance might be snatched furtively. These 
 were the men who should be fighting — these 
 useless lives. Surely a time will come in the 
 history of the world, when man, if he must 
 fight, will thrust the unfit into the firing line, 
 not the fit and the valiant. 
 
 Soothed by the warmth of the sun, they 
 were waiting until it was time to prowl forth 
 under cover of night to the dim streets, offer- 
 ing chances. Boys beginning, men ending 
 
THE VISION SPLENDID 75 
 
 life, mortal realities, hope and hopelessness, 
 and I trying to make up my mind about this 
 madness of war that had seized the world. 
 
 As I sat in the sunshine waiting, I saw 
 between me and the shining water a picture, 
 not on canvas, but in the mind's eye, a picture 
 of the funeral of an old woman of the very 
 poor class, a caretaker in a church, who might 
 have been the mother of one of those boys, 
 or the wife of one of those men. And I saw 
 in the mind's eye, as the modest procession 
 passed through the mean streets, hats being 
 raised and eyes following the poor cortege 
 affectionately; and when a passer-by asked 
 someone who had known the old woman 
 what was the secret of her influence, he 
 answered, and to make his meaning quite 
 sure he wrote it down: 
 
 "Her secret was an open one. She had 
 never lost the vision splendid nor let Heaven 
 slip from her heart." 
 
 The vision splendid! Was not that what 
 I was really waiting for, the vision splendid, 
 
76 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 ever present in life, and one day to be made 
 plain to all? Between the lively boys and the 
 lethargic men the old woman intervened, and 
 from her coffin manifested it. 
 
 The clock struck six. The boys doffed 
 their breeches and rushed wildly into the 
 water. As the policeman moved away he 
 caught sight of the three little girls mothering 
 the two babies who had waited so patiently. 
 
 "Now you be off," he cried. Obediently 
 they rose, knowing that it is life to be moved 
 on just when the fun begins. They went 
 away ruefully, staggering under the weight 
 of the babies. As they climbed the railings 
 one raised her head and saw the splendour 
 of the sky with the sun half hidden by a 
 racing cloud, and she said: " Oh, look, Polly !" 
 
 Polly looked. For an instant the clamour 
 of the world was hushed; I think in that 
 moment they forgot all about the policeman 
 and the splashing urchins. And I, waiting 
 for the soldiers who never came, had found 
 the vision splendid — in a funeral and a sky. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ART AND IMMORTALITY 
 
 DEFORE the war he was a musician 
 ^ devoted to fugues and etchings. Now 
 he is a Flight Sub-Lieutenant (R.N.), ab- 
 sorbed in aeroplanes and anti-aircraft guns. 
 He is quite happy, although he lives in a hut 
 on a muddy plain and, weather permitting, 
 risks his life daily in the air. 
 
 I sat in his comfortable study in London 
 awaiting him, thinking of the vicissitudes 
 of life which had converted the musician from 
 a Fuguist into a Flying Man. Soon I laughed, 
 recalling this passage from Jeremy Taylor 
 — "All parts of the scheme are eternally 
 chasing each other, like the parts of a fugue." 
 His game is still to chase something, but the 
 
 quarry has changed — that's all. 
 77 
 
78 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 There was a pleasant rush of air as the 
 door opened. In he came. " You," he said, 
 and smiled, " Oh, it's good to be home again, 
 even for a night." We talked, not of war; 
 we talked about the Rembrandt etchings 
 that hung upon the walls, of the Abraham and 
 Isaac, the eternal lesson of sacrifice, which 
 has always, we know not why, been the last 
 glad refuge and triumph of humanity. 
 " Rembrandt was initiate," said I. "He 
 muddled his material life, but his spiritual 
 vision was never obscured. It was as clear 
 to him as the world's dumb fealty to sacrifice." 
 "Yes," said the Musician, "Rembrandt 
 knew, and because he had no doubts about 
 his spiritual knowledge he helps us now 
 enormously. That picture there is, to me, 
 the spiritual expression of our cause. It 
 abides with me in all danger." 
 
 His eyes were raised above the mantelpiece. 
 They were looking at a large photograph of 
 Rembrandt's, Polish Rider — that unforget- 
 table picture, a warrior riding forth through 
 
ART AND IMMORTALITY 79 
 
 a romantic landscape, but the mission of this 
 rider is born of the spirit, not of the flesh: he 
 rides forth to fight for right, not for might. 
 "That picture sustains me," said the Musi- 
 cian. "I return here for another look at 
 it. Its message cannot fade. This war has 
 taught me that a picture can have the essence 
 of immortality and can help us to see light 
 beyond the blackness of a moment." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "and music has that power 
 too. Mendelssohn has it." 
 
 The Maker of Fugues flared up. I had 
 touched a sensitive nerve. "Really," he 
 said, "you must not admire Mendelssohn. 
 He is neither profound, nor pathetic, nor 
 spiritual — he's merely melodious and cheerful. 
 In art you do not permit yourself to like 
 Correggio. Moreover, Mendelssohn was a 
 German." 
 
 "Being dead he lives forgiven. Listen! 
 Here's my case about Mendelssohn, not 
 theory but fact. It happened; and a day 
 closed joyously because of this dead German 
 
80 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 who loved England, who was happy and who 
 made melody out of his happiness. His joy 
 is with us still; it cannot be taken from a 
 broken-hearted world. Art is love, God is 
 love, and, who knows, it may be through 
 art to God that our hearts will be made whole 
 again. But you want my story, a little 
 story, telling how a little song brought 
 healing. 
 
 "O, but it was a doleful day with a gusty 
 wind, a blurred sky, and a drizzle of rain. I 
 tried to be cheerful because I was beginning 
 a brief holiday, but an ambulance train 
 entered the station five minutes before we 
 started. I, trying not to look, saw it all — 
 those bronzed boys helpless — in pain. The 
 tenderness of the nurses and orderlies I saw 
 too, and also the stained bandages and the 
 broken lives. I tried to visualise Rethel's 
 engraving of Death as a Friend, tried to 
 repeat once more Henley's lines, 'Take us, 
 break us, we are yours, England, my own,' 
 but the words swam out of sight in a mist. 
 
ART AND IMMORTALITY 81 
 
 I arrived at my destination to discover that 
 my luggage had gone astray. 
 
 "That destination was a coast town, lovely 
 in sunshine, unlovely in the darkening gloom, 
 with barricades and barbed wire on the 
 front, and deep trenches in the yellow sands. 
 Night fell, no lamps were lighted, and the 
 nocturne recruiting meeting that was held 
 outside the hotel was like calling to ghosts 
 to quit themselves like men. During dinner 
 we were startled by the screech of syrens 
 from the sea; then a gun boomed. We 
 peeped through the curtains; only blackness 
 and foreboding. Afterwards in the lounge 
 the little company were silent. The evening 
 papers came. A woman looked eagerly 
 down the casualty lists and began to cry. 
 
 " 'So,' I murmured, 'this is England in 
 war-time! Thank God night will soon come 
 to hide in oblivion this atrocious day.' As 
 I spoke a servant opened the pianoforte, and 
 another led in two blind men. One had a 
 violin. 
 
82 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 "They played Mendelssohn's Spring Song. 
 And at once, swift as light, gloom went, joy 
 came, hope and gladness rippled into our 
 hearts, because two blind makers of music 
 were playing Mendelssohn's Spring Song, 
 thus once more affirming the eternal mission 
 of art." 
 
 "But Mendelssohn isn't art," said the 
 Musician. "Now Mozart " 
 
 "Well, call him immortal," said I, "like 
 Rembrandt; for to cheer, from the grave, 
 one lonely, living soul is Immortality, which 
 is greater than art. Thus we may begin to 
 understand the Communion of Saints by 
 Rembrandt and Mendelssohn." 
 
 The Musician, who is now a Flight Sub- 
 Lieutenant (R.N.), smiled, and as he smiled 
 he whistled the Spring Song, and as he 
 whistled he looked reverently at the Polish 
 Rider. "Yes," he said, "as one star differs 
 from another in glory, so, I suppose, there 
 are degrees of Immortality." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT 
 
 T HAD been in the neighbourhood of the 
 * camp where her grandson, aged nineteen, 
 was stationed. He sailed for France the 
 next day. Later, on my return to London, 
 I hastened to her house. 
 
 She is old in years — very old — but her 
 heart is young. It is always spring-time in 
 her heart. There she sits in her arm-chair 
 by the fire, dwelling on the wants and ways 
 of others, carrying on, carrying out the pre- 
 cepts of a living philosopher who has said 
 that "whatever comes after death, the com- 
 mand of life is the same — to expand out of 
 oneself into the larger life of the world." 
 That, I know, is her Easter text, her first 
 prayer on the Bright Day. 
 83 
 
84 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 She is of soldier stock, a mother and grand- 
 mother of warriors, and the last of them is 
 her grandson, aged nineteen. Quickly she 
 showed me a letter from him, written in 
 pencil when he was crossing the Channel, 
 reading aloud this passage: "I shall be at the 
 front by Easter, granny — our Easter." She 
 sighed, but refused to be sad. 
 
 To her quiet room have come, all this 
 year, many soldiers, some on brief leave from 
 the front, others recovering from wounds. 
 They do not talk much. Some kiss her 
 hand, and say a few words. Her fine old 
 face is firm, there is no moisture in her eyes, 
 for she is of the soldier breed. Once only 
 have I seen the tears start to her estimating 
 eyes, and that was — I will tell you about it 
 later. 
 
 These men, these soldiers from the front, 
 war-worn, grave, the look of command in 
 their eyes, and that other look, uplifting all 
 who have seen unutterable things, who know 
 the cost of victory, and who return to face 
 
THE UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT 85 
 
 death — these men give to her drawing-room 
 the atmosphere of the heroic age. Indi- 
 viduals come and go, but the type is always 
 present, and, seeing them, I plead for for- 
 giveness for the wickedness of war in grati- 
 tude for the spiritual evolution that, out 
 of complexities of horror, can produce this 
 selfless type of heroism. 
 
 On this day she was alone, her knitting in 
 her hands, her grandson's letter marking a 
 page in a thick green book resting upon her 
 lap. "Browning's Christmas Eve and Easter 
 Day," she said, "I always read it this week 
 each year. Once I read it to him — poor boy, 
 he was so bored. It was at Winchelsea, and 
 the meadows were full of little frisking lambs, 
 and the larks were singing. We have spent 
 so many Easters together, and always away 
 from London. Once, early on Easter Sun- 
 day, he brought me a daffodil, and he said, 
 as he gave it to me: 'He is risen,' and I 
 
86 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 answered, in the old way. ' He is risen, indeed,' 
 and he whispered: 'Granny is that why you 
 and I are always so happy at Easter?' He 
 was such a serious little fellow, and now he's 
 grown up, he's nineteen, and he's given all, 
 his bright youth, his love of life, to his King 
 and Country. His work has begun. 'O, 
 lover of my life, soldier-saint, no work 
 begun shall ever pause for death!'" Then 
 the tears fell. 
 
 It was the only time I have seen her cry. 
 "That's from Browning, too," she said, 
 brushing the tears away. "He understood. 
 O, but I'm a silly old woman. I won't be 
 sad at Easter. I never have been. Why, 
 the flowers are all coming out, and the buds 
 peeping, and the blossom glistening in the 
 sun, and my boy in his brave new uniform 
 has, I know, the light of spring and victory 
 in his eyes. All the world is beginning life 
 anew after that illusion we call death, or 
 winter." She looked up towards the light 
 and suddenly she seemed initiate as she 
 
THE UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT 87 
 
 uttered the great words that sanctify the 
 Bright Day. " Surrexit, He is risen. Vere 
 surrexit, He is risen indeed." 
 
 "If only I could see it all again," she said 
 presently. ' ' This re-birth of the world which 
 
 I feel in my heart, see again one unforgettable 
 sight like those lambs my boy and I watched 
 frisking in the sun at Winchelsea. But I 
 must stay at home. My friends are my 
 eyes. Now, you have been in the country, 
 where my boy was stationed, you have felt 
 the spring, tell me what you have seen of 
 the re-birth of the world, tell me what has 
 left the most vivid impression upon you; 
 tell me the unforgettable sight that I may 
 cherish it this Easter." 
 
 " One day was a day of sunshine," I began, 
 
 II clear and pure, and the blossom, rather 
 scanty, was pink against the blue sky, and 
 on the bare trees there were little clumps of 
 swelling green buds. The beds were ablaze 
 with crocuses, and beyond the hedge were 
 pale primroses, and the golden celandine, 
 
88 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 and if the snowdrops had gone, the bluebells 
 were now beginning to promise their beauty. 
 Oh, the violets were already peeping out! 
 We were standing in the garden watching a 
 heron flying high over the pond by the wood, 
 when we heard the sound of guns ." 
 
 "No, no, not that," she said, "not killing, 
 not that, tell me of birds, of the promise of 
 spring, of a world new-risen with revived 
 hopes — show me the unforgettable sight ." 
 
 ' 'We heard the sound of firing, and soon 
 we saw the soldiers coming over the hill, 
 swinging down the white road. We went 
 to meet them, we thought your boy might 
 be among them — and he was!" 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "We watched them approach. They had 
 been singing Tipperary, but as they drew near, 
 the chorus ceased, there was a pause, nothing 
 but the shuffling of feet, then someone struck 
 up 'John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in 
 the grave, But his soul goes marching on.' 
 They all joined in. We raised our hats and 
 
THE UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT 89 
 
 — and, oh it was wonderful! I realised it 
 all, felt the whole meaning, this consecrated 
 company, these soldiers of Christ, righting 
 the good fight for an Ideal, and your boy 
 was among them. His face was transfigured. 
 That was the unforgettable sight." 
 
 "Yes, yes," she murmured, "I am content, 
 so content. Nothing is lost. God keep 
 them, and bring them home again. All is 
 well. The season of re-birth is with us. We 
 may sometimes think that all grows drear in 
 
 spite of the sunshine . " She checked 
 
 herself, turned to the poem, and read aloud 
 in a firm voice: 
 
 But Easter-Day breaks. But 
 Christ rises. Mercy every way 
 Is infinite — and who can say? 
 
 "Browning greeted the Unseen with a 
 cheer. So will I, so will we. My boy is 
 mine for evermore. The risen cannot fall. 
 The deathless cannot die. Surrexit." 
 
 11 Vere surrexit" 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE WHELPS 
 
 \A /E were seated round the fire discuss- 
 " * ing the inevitable subject. But we 
 had made a compact. Our war talk should 
 be only of things that are encouraging and 
 helpful. So much at least we — safe, snug, 
 and warm — could do. From our fireside 
 would pass out into the world invisible rays 
 of fortitude ; of pride and trust in wise rulers ; 
 in devoted civilians; in our glorious soldiers 
 and sailors — and in the whelps. At first we 
 called them our chicks, and I imagined a 
 patriotic cartoon showing the old bird sud- 
 denly finding herself in trouble, beset by 
 enemies — and, you know what happened, 
 the chicks flying home across the seas from 
 
 all parts of the world to rally round her. 
 90 
 
THE WHELPS 91 
 
 The rumour that the old Mother was in 
 trouble was enough for them — the chicks re- 
 nounced at once their pursuits and pastimes, 
 and flocked home — such big, gallant chicks. 
 
 But Miggles (she has always been called 
 Miggles after a famous and dear character 
 in fiction), who was trying not to cry tears 
 of pride which were half joy and half sorrow, 
 complained that she didn't like the idea of 
 the old bird and her chicks. " They're lion 
 whelps," she said, "not chicks. They heard 
 the old lion roar, and they came. It was 
 the call of the blood." 
 
 So we named them the whelps, and we 
 hymned them as we sat patiently waiting for 
 our whelps, three brothers, one of whom had 
 married a daughter of our host. They were 
 coming in their khaki to say an revoir. Alas, 
 there is no word in English which whispers — 
 "We'll come back soon, and all will be well." 
 So we waited and talked of the great family 
 of whelps from Australia, New Zealand, 
 Canada, Newfoundland, and South Africa; 
 
92 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 from all lands where the hardy English have 
 penetrated — those whelps, some rich, some 
 poor, some dark, some fair, all of the blood, 
 clear-eyed, defiant, who bring the air of the 
 open and the stride of free men into muggy 
 London town. Sometimes when I meet 
 them in Victoria Street, I think for the 
 moment that I am on the prairie. 
 
 We talked proudly of the whelps; but 
 after a while our hostess, who is a Londoner 
 born, and who had been rather silent, said: 
 "But don't forget our London boys — the 
 boys of Pimlico, and Hoxton, and Streatham, 
 and Highgate, and everywhere, who rushed 
 to help when the old lion first began to lash 
 his tail. He found that he was a little stiff 
 in the joints when he shook himself; but he 
 soon showed that he was as game and as 
 strong as ever. Don't forget our London 
 boys who helped him to his feet." 
 
 No, we did not forget them. Yet we were 
 silent, for not one of us but ached for the loss 
 of a London boy, and at the thought of all 
 
THE WHELPS 93 
 
 that was left — just a little cross in Flanders, 
 Gallipoli, or Mesopotamia, or some spot on 
 the great waters, never to be located, but 
 never to be forgotten. We were silent. 
 
 Presently I told them the tale of the two 
 London boys and the Gallipoli blizzard, a 
 sad tale, but the simple splendour of it out- 
 soars the sadness. It was the fifth day of 
 the great blizzard and frost at Suvla. Men 
 came in, reported the medical officer, frozen 
 to the knees, some with gangrene. Many 
 were mere boys, but they had refused to 
 leave the trenches until reinforcements ar- 
 rived. One morning, a Newfoundlander, in 
 a trench near by, drew the attention of the 
 medical officer to two figures in a ditch out 
 by the Salt Lake. The officer called a 
 stretcher party, and they found two lads of 
 the City of London Regiment sitting in the 
 ditch frozen and dead. One of the lads had 
 his arms around the other, and he was hold- 
 ing pieces of biscuit to his companion 's mouth. 
 
 We were silent. We could not speak, and 
 
94 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 while we sat thus, looking down, the three 
 whelps entered, grand in their new uniforms, 
 and one said — "Holloa, is this a funeral?" 
 They judged by our faces; they could not 
 see the pride and glory in our hearts because 
 we belonged to the Anglo-Saxon race. We 
 admired their uniforms, debated kit topics, 
 and told cheerful stories, for nobody wanted 
 to break down, and we wished to send the 
 whelps off with happy memories. 
 
 When they had gone I began thinking of 
 the Britons, who, for some centuries, have 
 scattered over the globe. They are the sires, 
 grandsires, ancestors of our whelps. Then 
 I remembered the forty-niners in California, 
 and the days of my youth, when Bret Harte's 
 stories, revealing a free, fresh life, brimming 
 with humour, pathos, and the sense of sacri- 
 fice, seemed to me, as a boy, sublime. Ob- 
 sessed by the dream I rose and drew from the 
 bookshelf the volume of Bret Harte's stories. 
 
 Aloud I read passages from the four master- 
 pieces — Tennessee's Partner, The Luck of 
 
THE WHELPS 95 
 
 Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, 
 and Miggles, wherein are enshrined types of 
 the fearless, philosophical, humorous, straight 
 British ancestors of our dear whelps. Glad 
 was I to recover from the past dear Mliss, 
 and best of all, the loyal, loving, and unparal- 
 leled Miggles. 
 
 While our Miggles tried to dissemble, I 
 thought of another wanderer, a Scot, this 
 time, R.L.S., who, far, far away from home 
 wrote of his wife: 
 
 Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, 
 
 With eyes of gold and bramble dew, 
 
 Steel-true and blade-straight, 
 
 The great artificer 
 
 Made my mate. 
 
 I said these lines over to myself as we made 
 our way home through the darkened streets, 
 and I dreamed that night of all they meant, 
 and of Tennessee's Partner, and of Miggles, 
 and of whelps so big that they could not 
 stand upright in a motor-bus, and who 
 always called England — home. 
 
96 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 Next day we met two more whelps. The 
 encounter stirred us to joy. The first sat 
 opposite to me at a luncheon party in West- 
 minster. He was a young Lieutenant, fair, 
 with an eye like the flash of a sword, who 
 quoted Michael Drayton, and was familiar 
 with Froissart, and who regarded London 
 as the most entrancing place in the world. 
 "Where do you come from?" I asked him 
 afterwards, shuffling my chair alongside his. 
 He told me that he is a South African, Eng- 
 lish father, Dutch mother, and that he had 
 worked his passage to Tilbury docks as 
 assistant purser. And why had he come? 
 "O, you know the old country wanted — 
 you understand." Yes, I understood. The 
 mother-father lion was bothered, and the 
 whelp hastened to her aid. 
 
 I told this to Miggles as we roamed about 
 Westminster afterwards. "I'd love to adopt 
 a whelp," she said, tearfully. "All right," 
 said I, "but choose one who is not more than 
 six foot six inches high." 
 
THE WHELPS 97 
 
 "Here's a batch to select from," I re- 
 marked, as towards us from the direction of 
 the Embankment Garden came four soldiers, 
 privates, magnificent, laden, mud-stained, 
 fresh from the trenches. As they approached, 
 one of them, who was walking lame, lagged 
 behind. His companions crossed the road 
 and hastened towards the Square. The lame 
 man hobbled towards us, and as he passed 
 
 I noticed on his epaulette the word " Canada." 
 Private Something of Canada had gone a 
 dozen yards away when Miggles cried: 
 
 II Can't we do something for him? Do let 
 me try!" She ran after him. I followed 
 leisurely to discover her pressing upon him 
 offers of assistance. "There's a delightful 
 Soldiers' Club at Victoria," she was saying, 
 "where you can get a really good meal for 
 a few pence." "Thank you so much," he 
 said. * ' I appreciate your kindness, madam. ' ' 
 His manner was courteous, his accent that 
 of an educated man, but there was a tiny 
 twinkle of amusement in his eyes, and I 
 
98 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 noticed that he wore on his little finger a fine 
 signet ring. 
 
 But Miggles would not be denied. She 
 plied him with offers of help and questions. 
 Yes, he had come from the trenches that 
 morning: a three-months-old wound in his 
 leg was troubling him a little, but it was of 
 no consequence; he had been in London 
 before, knew it rather well. 
 
 His eyes roamed up, up, the House of the 
 Mother of Parliaments. " That's wonder- 
 ful," he said. 
 
 "It stands for Freedom — it's worth fight- 
 ing for," cried Miggles. 
 
 "Yes," said the soldier, quietly, "it's 
 worth fighting for." 
 
 "And are you sure," continued Miggles, 
 "that we can't do anything for you? Couldn't 
 we find you a nice little hotel, and drive 
 you there?" looking furtively at his lame 
 leg. 
 
 "Thanks so much," said the Canadian 
 Private; "my friends have just gone on to 
 
THE WHELPS 99 
 
 find a cab, and — and we've already engaged 
 rooms at the Ritz." 
 
 We resumed our walk, and I said gently 
 to Miggles: "When you propose to adopt a 
 whelp you'd better make sure that he's not 
 a millionaire." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ENDURING TO THE END 
 
 I ASSOCIATE Uncle John with the walk, 
 and the walk with Uncle John. He is 
 the genius of that green place in mid-London 
 where thrushes sing, herons doze, rabbits 
 nibble, and a waterfall sprinkles the shrubs. 
 I salute the veteran. Uncle John, civilian, 
 is a gallant son of England. Broken in 
 health, his son gone, his wife a memory, this 
 ageing man is enduring to the end. Uncon- 
 quered by time and disaster, he is worthy 
 sire of his soldier-boy who died with a laugh 
 and a shout, without a pang, shot in the 
 throat as he leapt into the enemy's trench. 
 The father remains — "sticking it." Once a 
 rationalist, now a mystic, the change so 
 slow, the awakening so delicate, he endures, 
 
 IOO 
 
ENDURING TO THE END 101 
 
 I believe, I am sure, as seeing Him who is 
 invisible. Valiant to the end, we are helped 
 by the tireless patience and unfaltering faith 
 of this ill, ageing man, known to many sol- 
 diers as Uncle John. 
 
 That walk — such a little walk! You may 
 approach it spaciously from Marble Arch; 
 you may reach it quickly through that nagged 
 lane in Knightsbridge called Park Place. 
 Either way leads to the East bridge over the 
 Serpentine, the beginning and the end of 
 that sanctified walk. Wonderful sights may 
 be seen! There are days when, as you lean 
 on the parapet, and look westward over the 
 wide, curving water (moist twilights in the 
 clearing after rain for choice), water and sky 
 seem to lead to Infinity. The dim trees in 
 the distance, bordering the grey water, help 
 the illusion, and reveal to us the Open Gate, 
 which Claude and Turner brought into art, 
 and which must always stir in man immortal 
 longings. 
 
 This is the sight that Uncle John sees at 
 
102 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 the hour of sundown — his hour of relaxation. 
 For his days are rigorously devoted to "doing 
 his bit." He makes bandages ; he sandpapers 
 splints; he cuts ham sandwiches three nights 
 a week at a soldiers' club; he composes and 
 prints at his own cost leaflets which he calls 
 Wargains; and, best of all, he takes wounded 
 soldiers on this little walk at sundown — 
 where thrushes sing. 
 
 He leads them, some hobbling, some stump- 
 ing on one leg and a crutch, through Park 
 Place, across the Row, and so to the East 
 Bridge. There they pause; they lean over 
 the parapet; their eyes, still harbouring the 
 dread sights of war, look beyond the water, 
 absorbing that sweet, fresh solitude of peace, 
 and Uncle John talks of . 
 
 No, I must not repeat his talk. He is 
 very wise, and although in his great heart 
 there is a burning desire to tell these boys of 
 the righteous and noble cause for which they 
 are fighting; that he who endures to the end 
 shall save himself, his friends, and his land, 
 
ENDURING TO THE END 103 
 
 Uncle John does not sermonize them. He 
 is wise. He talks history; he tells the boys 
 the curious tale of the Serpentine Lake, the 
 lost Westbourne brook which feeds the lake, 
 its hidden springs and outflowings to the 
 other waters of the Royal Parks; he speaks 
 of the birds, how he has seen a blue tit here, 
 and a flock of chaffinches yonder; he tells of 
 the dead, the great and the good, makers of 
 England, who have crossed this bridge; he 
 reminds these soldier-boys that they stand 
 there in the heart of our England; he indi- 
 cates Whitehall, Kensington, Westminster, 
 hallowed by memories, our splendid heritage, 
 placed in our charge — "and that's the old 
 land you're fighting for, boys, fighting so 
 that your children may come into it free and 
 unfettered, clean and confident, as we did. 
 Keep the old flag flying!" And into the 
 clear eyes of his hearers comes a look that is 
 good to see. They are of the old British 
 stock, men who drew the bow, and sailed the 
 seas, and feared nothing. I turn away, for 
 
104 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 my eyes are dimmed with pride and gladness 
 that I am British born. 
 
 Then the walk begins. They cross the 
 bridge to the north. Uncle John stops be- 
 fore the inscription which tells how Edward 
 the Confessor gave the manor of Hyde to the 
 Abbey of Westminster, with a supply of pure 
 water from a conduit which started at this 
 spot. The group descends the path to the 
 right, passing the pond where the grave 
 herons stand, Uncle John talking all the while 
 of England's past, her splendour, and her 
 freedom; her flowers, birds, and trees that 
 you may see in this odd, delightful little walk 
 in the heart of London. Then they ascend 
 to the right, and the brimming Serpentine 
 is in view again, and the weeping ashes and 
 the young shoots on the Daphne tree; so they 
 come once more to the bridge and the para- 
 pet which faces the Open Gate. There they 
 linger, somewhat tired, although it is such a 
 little walk; but wounded soldiers are not 
 athletes. Before they separate, Uncle John 
 
ENDURING TO THE END 105 
 
 murmurs, confidentially, a few sentences of 
 simple, helpful talk, explaining the mystical 
 meaning of such words as duty, endurance, 
 consecration, faith, God ; and he likes to give 
 each of them a copy of one of his leaflets 
 called War gains. If the day be fine he will 
 read them something from a dumpy khaki- 
 covered note-book, which he calls My Antho- 
 logy. One day when he read a poem, a soldier 
 by my side, with one arm gone and a right 
 leg in a sling, nodded his head, and said — 
 "That's a bit o' alright. So's 'e." "True," 
 I said, "Uncle John's all right. He's en- 
 during to the end, against odds, and that 
 isn't easy. Why do you call him Uncle 
 John?" 
 
 The soldier rearranged the sling about his 
 crippled leg, remarking to it, "Now, none 
 o' your back talk," and said : "Why do we call 
 'im Uncle John? Well, it's like this. 'E 
 told us once that John the Apostle, when he 
 was a very old man — a deal older than Bobs 
 was when he died — used to stand about in 
 
106 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 market-places, always saying of the same 
 thing, which was 'Little children, love one 
 another.' We chaps tried to figure it out 
 how you love and kill at the same time. We 
 couldn't agree, so we asked 'im to tell us the 
 story again, and my mate said that this 
 Saint John must 'ave been like the old chap, 
 so we called 'im John — that is, Uncle John, 
 because John seemed too familiar like." 
 
 Came a day, a sunset clearing after rain, 
 when something happened, which rounded 
 off Uncle John's life into an episode final 
 and unforgettable. He had been ill. It was 
 the incurable, internal complaint that gave 
 him constant discomfort and frequent pain; 
 but the attacks only increased his activities. 
 When I, watching the spasms of his face and 
 limbs, offered sympathetic suggestions about 
 taking it easier and nursing his perverse body, 
 he answered, "No, when I sink I'll go down 
 in full sail," and his frail form straightened 
 itself, and in his eyes there was ecstasy. We 
 were waiting by the parapet. We had gone 
 
ENDURING TO THE END 107 
 
 on together during one of the little walks, 
 ahead of the group of wounded soldiers who 
 had lingered trying to induce the solemnest 
 of the herons to partake of a meal of bread 
 and cheese. When they had overtaken us, 
 Uncle John, withdrawing his khaki anthology 
 from his pocket, said: "Boys, it's a rare 
 evening — look at the sky! It's an evening 
 to remember, and I want to read you some- 
 thing that you'll remember when you're — 
 out there. It will help you." He had 
 reached as far as " Though I walk through the 
 valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no 
 evil; for Thou art with me," when, suddenly, 
 there was a commotion on the bridge, and 
 there advanced towards us that sight of sights 
 which no home-staying Englishman can look 
 upon without emotion and exultation — a sol- 
 dier fresh from the trenches — laden, stained, 
 caked in mud, smiling. 
 
 He saluted and said: "Thought I should 
 see you here, sir. Some of your boys asked 
 me to find you and give you a message. 
 
108 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 They want you to know that they're ' sticking 
 it, ' same as you are, and they say that they're 
 better able to stick it for what you've told 
 'em, and because you believe in 'em. Any 
 message, sir?" The soldier's hand went 
 again to the salute. He waited as for orders. 
 
 We waited, too. I thanked God that I 
 had been allowed to live for that moment. 
 It was a long moment, because the old civil- 
 ian's eyes had again sought the Open Gate. 
 They rested there — seeing something. Then 
 he turned to the mud-spattered soldier, and 
 because he was pure in heart, and without 
 guile, Uncle John said just two words, just 
 the right words — those two words that in 
 these days are as significant and uplifting 
 as any two words in the language. 
 
 "Any message, sir?" repeated the mud- 
 spattered soldier. 
 
 "Carry on," said Uncle John. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 TO ONE WHO WAS READY 
 
 TN the nave of Westminster Abbey, sunk 
 A in the floor, is a worn marble slab — a me- 
 morial to one of the Makers of England. On 
 the slab is a plain cross, and beneath it are 
 the words, "Be Ready." Seeing that injunc- 
 tion and the cross, I thought of you, Soldier- 
 Healer, and planned a letter which would 
 form the epilogue to this little book; and I 
 determined that the title should be "To One 
 who was Ready.' ' 
 
 I had chanced into the Abbey, with a 
 
 French Canadian from the front, while the 
 
 service of Intercession, which has been held 
 
 there daily since the war began, was in pro- 
 109 
 
no THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 gress. All around were the memorials of 
 our "decent and dauntless race," silent wit- 
 nesses, of whom we must be worthy. And 
 I was conscious, Soldier-Healer, of a mystical 
 communion with you, and with your men, 
 so far away on a hillside in Salonica. In- 
 visible, yet you were all visible to me. 
 
 When the service ended I sat, revolving 
 many things too elusive for words, for with all 
 of us feeling has become too deep and un- 
 charted for mere words or speech to express 
 it. Dumbly seeking relief, I went over in 
 memory the unrealised happiness of the days 
 before the war; then I pictured that fateful 
 August of 1 9 14, and all since. O, the mental 
 and emotional experiences our dear English 
 folk have passed through — pride, purifica- 
 tion, fervour, sorrow, joy, apprehension, 
 determination, wonder, loss, anxiety, gain, 
 hope — and now all these pangs have solidi- 
 fied into a grim, glad resolution, common 
 to all, in spite of the divergences of utter- 
 ance of proud, free men — to endure to the 
 
TO ONE WHO WAS READY in 
 
 end. And to be ready for endurance as for 
 triumph. 
 
 You were always ready! I see you in the 
 years before the war, an ardent Territorial, 
 snatching leisure from your professional 
 duties, to drill and to train your men in mili- 
 tary usages ; but also in the arts of succouring 
 and healing the wounded, the purpose and 
 privilege of your corps. I recall the eve of 
 the outbreak of war, when I sought your 
 company, feeling the need of speech with one 
 who would be facing the coming catastrophe 
 with steady brain and strong heart. I found 
 you "getting your kit together," arranging 
 for the swift end of your civil life, and of 
 your private professional work. All that 
 was over until the war was over. You, and 
 your wife, treated the cataclysm as a long 
 foreseen and inevitable break in the pleasant 
 run of life. You had discussed the coming 
 of the break, made all your plans. So the 
 day, the awful day, found you prepared — 
 ready to act immediately, you as a soldier 
 
ii2 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 healer at the front, she as a civilian healer 
 at the base. You uttered no heroics, you 
 sought no perferment, you set about your 
 duty quietly. I thought of what Blake had 
 once said: "I should be sorry if I had any 
 earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a 
 man has is so much detracted from his spir- 
 itual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit ; 
 I want nothing; I am quite happy.' ' 
 
 You disappeared. I picked you up from 
 our army in the making again and again in 
 the succeeding months — at barracks in Lon- 
 don, at camps in Surrey, and Sussex, calm, 
 confident, training your boys, and I am sure 
 no unit went out to France more prepared, 
 more willing for any sacrifice, so that England 
 might be saved, and freedom established 
 four-square against all assaults of the envious. 
 
 Then your letters began to arrive from 
 somewhere in France — such letters, nothing 
 about yourself, but always something about 
 
TO ONE WHO WAS READY 113 
 
 your boys, your "blessed boys," their endur- 
 ance, their gaiety, their sacrifice. O yes, 
 we wrote much to each other about that 
 wonderful dream come true called Sacrifice 
 that has passed, angel-like, with finger on 
 lip, over the land, uniting all, whatever their 
 lives or beliefs, into the knowledge — inar- 
 ticulate yet universal — that to give is to gain. 
 To the Greeks it may have been foolishness, 
 to the Jews a stumbling-block — to our land 
 it has become everything. And I, elderly 
 and ill, was wretched that I could not be 
 with the boys fighting, or with you healing, 
 in the midst of that hell. Someone from 
 Verdun had written: "Only he, who has 
 heaven in his heart, can withstand this hell." 
 O those letters that come to us from the 
 front. The faith of some of them is as water 
 in a desert. O the faith of our boys in spite 
 of that hell, and their clairvoyance about 
 eternal things! It was M. Bordeaux — was 
 it not? — who said, "Those who pray much 
 are not always the worst informed." 
 
114 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 One day there came for me a gleam of 
 happiness, and an effort to accept my lot. 
 You told me that an article of mine had 
 helped you, helped some of your boys. And 
 you asked for other messages. So I had the 
 confidence to go on, and to gather them into 
 a little book. Here it is, Soldier-Healer. 
 My heart sends it. You will open it some- 
 where on that hillside in Salonica, whither 
 you went without warning all "in the day's 
 work," ready for anything, so long as your 
 country asked. 
 
 England has always refused to be dis- 
 pirited — so have you. And as just now I 
 quoted what Blake, that great Englishman, 
 so un-English, yet in essentials so greatly 
 English, said about the individual, here I 
 recall what a great American said of Eng- 
 land: "I see her, not dispirited, not weak, but 
 well remembering that she has seen dark 
 days before; indeed, with a kind of instinct 
 that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, 
 and that in a storm of battle and calamity 
 
TO ONE WHO WAS READY 115 
 
 she has a secret vigour and a pulse like a 
 cannon.' ' It is the knowledge of a just and 
 righteous cause that gives England and gives 
 you and your boys secret vigour and a pulse 
 like a cannon; it is faith, which is insight, 
 that enabled you, in days of happy peace, to 
 be alert and ready for the pounce of the 
 unrighteous. 
 
 I arise and return to the nave, to that old 
 grey slab embedded in the floor. I see again 
 the cross, and the injunction. "Be Ready," 
 and I see in a vision that cross and those 
 words as your crest and motto. So from this 
 Temple of Silence and Reconciliation in 
 ancient Westminster, to some new-born 
 shanty church on a hillside in Salonica, there 
 passes from me to you, old friend, the invisi- 
 ble banner that I have chosen for you, and 
 for your boys — the cry, "Be Ready," and 
 above it the eternal symbol of the Cross. 
 
 Consoled I pass from the Abbey into the 
 brisk life of Westminster, and as I reach the 
 
n6 THE SOLDIER-BOY 
 
 street there swings by a troop of Bird Men 
 known officially as The Flying Corps. None 
 can look at them without elation — these 
 buoyant youths so gay and gallant. Smiling 
 and singing, they pass, leaving with us, who 
 are watching, an augury of cheer and confi- 
 dence. Seeing them, old friend, I send you 
 another message, the cry of assurance sailor- 
 men use, the cry the poet heard in the night, 
 the cry that rings in my heart to-day, and 
 for all days, the cry — All's Well. 
 
 THE END 
 
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