How Dear Is Life

by Henry Williamson

  Germans were being killed in thousands, in tens of thousands, as they advanced, sometimes drunk on ether, arm in arm to meet the death-dealing fire of mitrailleuse and Creusot rifle of the gallant allies fighting for Civilisation, while cowardly German officers, ready to shoot anyone wavering, followed on behind, wearing jackboots and monocles, fighting for Barbarism.

  He saw Bertie near the gate. Did he know why they were being kept in London? Was it in case of a desperate last throw of the Germans, invading across the North Sea?

  “Well, the fact is, old man,” said Corporal Bertie Cakebread, “the water-cart of the Shoreditch Borough Council has sprung a leak, and Billy Bolton the sergeant is trying to swop it for one belonging to the Marylebone Borough Council. No, joking apart—we haven’t got our horses yet.”

  Bertie had transferred to the transport section, under his friend Sergeant Bolton, who was going to be made a second-lieutenant, he said. Fancy Mr. Bolton’s son an officer!

  He returned, cheered by meeting Bertie. Another man was now singing Glorious Devon, followed by Drake Goes West. He cried Encore with the others, and clapped, as befitted one having a particular interest in both subjects.

  Yellow light over the Square changed to a penumbral green, then imperceptibly to a dusk of blue above black outlines of spire and roof and chimney pot. Baldwin and he went to their room as the thrilling Last Post of buglers echoed around the shadows. Time to get down on the floor again, to try and sleep, after thinking of home, Mother. Newspapers laid over the stone made it a little less cold, in the wakeful early hours of the morning.

  Perhaps Mother would come on Sunday. After breakfast, there was a battalion parade in full marching order. First the cyclist section, then pipers and drummers followed by buglers with burnished copper bugles on green tasselled cords, then the Commanding Officer, the Earl of Findhorn on his charger, Adjutant beside him. The second-in-command, nicknamed the Iron Colonel, stern-looking martinet with heavy brown hongroised moustache, hero of the Boer War, waited on a high grey horse at the gate, to take up the rear. He was an honorary Colonel. Phillip regarded him with a mixture of awe and pride. He looked made of iron.

  As they marched through Regent’s Park, behind the pipers playing The Road to the Isles, to the lifted hats of men on the pavements, he felt the pride of being a London Highlander. Thrillingly he looked back and saw the long column of tramping men, swinging kilts and sloped rifles, company after company, all in step. His blisters were still raw under the ‘New Skin’ plaster he had put on them; but when his feet were hardened, things would be all right. Why did not Mother send his campaign clumps? He tried not to step otherwise than full on the ball of each foot, but it was agony. The day was extremely hot, his pack heavy, tunic under webbing belt clammy with perspiration. The pouches, with their fifty rounds of ammunition on each side, in clips of five brass cartridges with round-nosed nickel bullets, made his shoulder bones ache. O, for a pint of shandy-gaff, he could drink it all straight down. A hot breeze rustled the dry leaves of the trees, a harsh sound. Left-right, left-right, the man in front bobbing up and down, kilt swinging, would this spittle-frothy route march never end? O, to be in the Lake Woods, fishing under the rhododendron bushes, free to go anywhere, like Desmond and his new friend Eugene.

  *

  After dismissal by companies there was a rush for the chained, heavy iron cups in the playground; O, so slowly did the push-taps pour, would it never be his turn, O the scorching asphalt playground under his flaming blisters.

  Phillip and Baldwin were now good friends: the friendship of young men without egotism, confiding in one another, yet retaining each his soul in privacy. Truly they were private soldiers. Baldwin was fair-haired, round-headed, slow in speech, sturdy and strong. He played rugger for the Harlequins, and was in shipping insurance at Lloyds.

  Rumours came fast in the afternoon. The General was coming; the Bishop of London was coming; there had been a great victory in France; the Russians were deep into East Prussia; Prince Louis of Battenberg, after sending Naval Defence Plans to Berlin, had been put in the Tower.

  The second rumour came true. The Bishop, surplice over khaki service jacket with its black badges of a chaplain-colonel, addressed the battalion. Officers with gold-leaf cap-peaks and red tabs stood behind him. The Bishop spoke from a trestle table on the justice and righteousness of the war to stop aggression, to uphold the Christian ideal against the false doctrine that Might was Right. He who draws the sword shall perish by the sword, was his text.

  Never before, he declared, in the known history of mankind had a nation’s conscience been clearer upon the issues involved—between supercession of God before national militaristic idolatry on the one side, and intercession on behalf of civilisation based on Christianity on the other; between the forces of Satan, and the commandments of God.

  “This leads to the question which every man listening here, now, must put to himself: Is it not better for the defence of Britain, for the preservation of your cities and homes, to slip over the ‘silver streak’ and meet the enemy on the continent, rather than wait for the enemy to come across and treat our cities, our homes, our mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts, as the French and Belgian women had been treated? Let every man hearkening to these words of mine ponder in his own heart and decide in his own conscience whether or not he should volunteer for service abroad. The General Officer Commanding the London District has asked me if I will do this; and having examined my own heart, and after prayer to God for guidance, I have replied, that I am myself ready and willing to serve the troops of the London Division in the field, if so I should be ordered.

  “The Territorials, or such of you as may volunteer, will in all probability be employed on lines of communication, in order to release regular soldiers for the firing line, in the great and difficult fighting that is to come, when the main Armies are joined in battle.”

  The Bishop then uttered a prayer. The sun shone on his white hair as he bowed his head. When he got down from the trestle table, Phillip could see that he was receiving the thanks of the General, the Earl of Findhorn, and the Iron Colonel.

  Both these awesome figures, their left breasts adorned with South African War ribbons, the sleeve-cuffs of their cutaway jackets braided with four speckled khaki bands, each with its embroidered cloth crown and stars, their tartan breeches and highly polished riding boots and spurs, had made a deep impression on Phillip. He regarded them as almighty beings from another world. The company officers also were from that other world, high above him. Their faces were different from those of ordinary people. They looked cleaner, somehow, although not all were good-looking. Many of them, he imagined, lived in Park Lane, and, until the war, their hats were faultless Lincoln Bennetts. No doubt they drank champagne with their evening dinners in expensive hotels of the West End.

  While they stood easy, Phillip asked Baldwin what Captain Forbes did in private life. “Or has he a large private income, perhaps?”

  “He’s a partner in one of the oldest firms ‘in the House’—the Stock Exchange. Morty’s father is ‘in the House’, too; but Morty’s on the stage.”

  Phillip was surprised to learn that all the officers had served in the ranks, it being a rule of the regiment.

  “What, the Earl of Findhorn, a ranker!”

  “No, the C.O. is always a regular, usually a Coldstreamer.”

  “How about the second-in-command, ‘the Iron Colonel’?”

  “I don’t know, Phillip.”

  “‘Oscar’ Hatton?” said Mortimore, overhearing. “He joined as a private, after Charterhouse and Heidelberg, in eighteen seventy-nine. That makes you think, doesn’t it?”

  “Eighteen seventy-nine! Thirty-five years ago! But he has still got brown hair!”

  At this point ‘Colours’ said quietly, “Pay attention, men. Stand at ease, Captain Forbes wishes to say something.”

  Beside Captain Forbes stood Lieutenant Ogilby, both wearing swords in polished brown leather scabbards
.

  “Now, men, about volunteering for foreign service—it is realized, of course, that some of you have domestic and other responsibilities which must weigh in any decision you may make. On the other hand those of you who feel themselves free, and are nineteen years of age or over, can give in their names to me now.”

  Fiery Forbes had got so far when the battalion sergeant-major, a massive figure wearing a Sam Brown belt, sporran, and glengarry like those of the officers, approached to give Captain Forbes one of those salutes which, it was said, almost made the asphalt playground open in cracks. He was from the Coldstream, and had a line of campaign ribbons across his left breast, the first one being, according to Mortimore, for the landing at the Battle of Hastings. He had a very big head, and a moustache on his huge upper lip like a hedgehog. Each of his cheeks was ruddy-brown as a crab-shell, so was his thick neck, which seemed longer behind than in front, since he carried his head very upright with chin held down. When he gave an order, it was always out of the side of his mouth, his upper lip screwed sideways and his teeth showing—a fearsome figure, speaking in bolts or jerks of roaring, harsh Glasgow accent.

  Cane under left arm, standing rigid, the battalion sergeant-major barked, “With the compliments of the Adjutant, sir! The Commanding Officer to address the battalion, sir! The Adjutant will take the parade, sir!”

  In tense silence ‘B’ Company waited, listening.

  Phillip felt that something had happened. Perhaps the Germans had landed on the East Coast.

  Captain Forbes ordered ‘B’ Company to stand at ease. His eyes were bright, he looked alert.

  The Adjutant called the battalion to attention. All down the square the company commanders reported, in turn, that their companies were present and correct. Then the Adjutant turned to the Colonel and saluted him. “The London Highlanders are present and correct, sir!”

  “Thank you, Captain Menzies.”

  “London Highlanders!” cried the Colonel. “I need hardly add to what the Lord Bishop of London has already told you. It is a great honour for this battalion to be selected for foreign service, and in keeping with the high standards the regiment has always maintained since its foundation by the Highland Society, in association with the Caledonian Society, over half a century ago. This is a moment to recall to you the fact that Scotland and France have been traditionally friends for centuries, ever since Douglas and Sinclair rode with Jeanne d’Arc and Dunois at Orleans and Beaugé. Our friendship has endured up to, and beyond, the Union with England. We Scots, as well as those of you who are of Scottish origin, know very well that Scotland largely owes its existence today to that friendship. We have a chance now to show our gratitude in a practical way, when France, with Belgium, is fighting for her life against a ruthless invader determined to destroy her national existence, and ours with it.”

  Lord Findhorn held up a piece of paper. In the silence Phillip could hear the chirping of sparrows among the chimney pots of the school buildings, with the thudding of his heart. In a louder voice the Colonel cried,

  “London Highlanders! News has just been received that the British Expeditionary Force has since this morning been in action against the enemy!”

  There was a depth of silence after this announcement: then wave upon wave of cheering broke out among the lines. Arms arose, holding aloft glengarries. Baldwin cheered and waved beside Phillip, who felt himself like a speck of chilly dread among the gleeful excitement. He saw a flight of pigeons, passing overhead, suddenly flutter to the break-up, and turning, fly rapidly away. Then the massed excitement took him and he shouted with the rest.

  *

  Five minutes later, stepping up to where Fiery Forbes stood, ‘Colours’ beside him with note-book, he said he would volunteer for foreign service. Then stepping back a pace, he saluted: and it was Baldwin’s turn. They had agreed to go together.

  It was rather strange to learn who had not volunteered. Lance-corporal Mortimore said he was expecting his commission to be gazetted: and several others, who looked big and strong, had decided for Home Service. Among them was Downham. He was a single man, and like Lance-corporal Furrow of Head Office, a member of the London Rowing Club. It was all a bit of a surprise, for many of the smaller chaps, not looking half so strong, like Kirk and Blunden, had put down their names. Even so, what had he done? What would Mother say? He had thought that everyone else would volunteer, and had not liked to appear different. But when he heard that the three Wallace brothers had volunteered, as well as Bertie and Gerry and Sergeant Bolton, Phillip felt reassured.

  Soon afterwards Gerry sought him out to say that Aunt Hetty and Aunt Dora were waiting by the gate. Hurrying thither, he told them what he had done. Then seeing Mother’s rather sad-smiling face, he felt slight panic. Bayonets! His panic was controlled: but it showed itself in the sharpened features, and clenched hands, as observed by both women. To Dora, he was still the unhappiest little boy she had ever seen.

  “Perhaps I can take it back, Mum. I can ask ‘Colours’.”

  “You must do what you think right, Phillip, of course, naturally,” said Hetty.

  Newsboys in the street beyond the sentry were shouting. They listened.

  BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN ACTION!

  “My heavy shoes, where are they? Why have you not brought them up for me, as I asked repeatedly? I must have them, I must!”

  “They will come soon, I expect, dear. The man in the shop said the factory had a lot of orders for the Army.”

  “I knew that would happen!” he said, with strained look. “That’s why I took them at once! Oh well, I must say goodbye now,” he said, unable to bear the further thought of being seen talking to his mother at the gate.

  When they had gone, he wandered about the playground with Baldwin. He did not speak to the Colour-sergeant. ‘Colours’ would suspect him of being what he was, and always had been, cowardly.

  As far as that went, Phillip deceived himself: for the Colour-sergeant, a married man with three children, had not volunteered.

  Chapter 12

  AS IN TWO GLASSES

  THEODORA MADDISON left her sister-in-law at Charing Cross, out of consideration for Hetty’s feelings having refrained from saying what she believed: and suffering because of the self-imposed restriction. Poor Hetty, she thought, poor Hetty; all that little mother could do now was to hope and pray. It would be a crime to enlighten her about the dreadful reality of the war, which was sweeping away more and more people in its evil deluge of hysteria, and darkening the very sun of truth.

  She had listened to the Bishop’s address, keeping silent afterwards. She tried to reassure Hetty by a calm and unruffled presence. She must dissemble her real thoughts. What did the Bishop know of living truth? Had he not visited Holloway Prison seven months before, and declared after his ‘investigation’ that the ‘alleged ill-treatment’ of Suffragettes had no basis in reality? The rich and the comfortable lived in an entirely different world. It was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich human being to know the truth of Christ. Theodora, making her way back on foot to Old Ford, heard again the sudden cheering, saw the wild delight, the excitement, as part of the maniac flashing of bayonets throughout the world.

  In the grey city of Dublin, before the outbreak of the war, she had watched a grim prelude of what was to come. The voice of a half-starved child still haunted her, as it cried out from among the crowd to the English soldiers marching to the docks. You killed my father! The tattered mite had shaken her small fist at the hard faces below the undulating, sloping frise of bayonets fixed on rifles at the slope. She and Sylvia had been at the inquest of the Dubliners killed when the troops had fired into a crowd. The jury had been magnanimous, blaming not the soldiers, but the Government, declaring that the military were illegally on the streets.

  The scenes at the boat station had been of the same spiritual devastation. Dense, dark crowds swayed before the big locked door, an almost senseless packed mass of reservists
in civilian clothes, younger soldiers in khaki; children screaming in the pressure of bodies, drunken men cursing and quarrelling; white-faced babies carried on the shoulders of women blasphemous, piteous, or praying aloud to the Saints and the Mother of God. Periodically the great door opened as though to Gehenna, revealing a double line of burly uniforms of the Royal Irish Constabulary. For hours the struggle seemed to go on, thousands of people fighting to get past the door through which, she thought, not one of them truly wanted to go.

  When at last she and Sylvia got through to the other side, the scene on the platform and around the booking counters was of a deeper sadness. Hundreds of drunken soldiers lurching about arm in arm, caps on backs of heads; staggering, glass-eyed, as they sang, or spewed. Many were lying down in pools of their own urine upon the platform. Oaths, curses, swinging blows upon heads and bodies; wailing of little frightened children, weeping red-eyed mothers. They behave like that because they do not think, Sylvia’s voice said beside her. But they dare not think, she replied; and that was why not one man, or woman or child among them all was doing what he or she wanted to do.

  To Dora the scene at the boat-side was the climax of the Aeschylean drama. Here women in the poorest clothes, wives of men, surplus of the labour market, who had taken the King’s shilling as an alternative to starvation—here the women had broken through the thin, undernourished restraint which had buoyed them white-faced and staring until then. They clung with loud sobs and moans to their men. Some of the younger ones, who had not been able to get up the gangway to the ship, in despair of being able to pick out a loved face in the immense mass of figures crowding the rails high above, were sobbing, faces in hands, doubled up, against the walls of a warehouse. O, the sad gestures of love!

  And then, in the strange manner of humanity, as the ship was under way, slowly edging from the quay, a transformation had come about in the spirit of place and scene; and into her mind had come the Latin tag, Dolor decrescit, for at some point, starting either on the ship or from the quay, people began to wave and cheer; and the emotion spread until every ship in harbour and in dock was blowing its sirens, answered by short jubilant blasts from the departing transport. Minute after minute the excitement was kept up; and when at last Kingstown had receded and the wake was spreading wider and smoother to the Irish shore, then within the ship could be heard shouted tuneless choruses, aimless yelling, discordant cheering.