The crack of the great gavel brought us to our feet, after some surging and plunging among the cripples. Then the Battery-Sergeant- Major, in a trained voice, delivered hearty and fraternal greetings to ‘Faith and Works’ from his tropical District and Lodge. The others followed, with out order, in every tone between a grunt and a squeak. I heard ‘Hauraki,’ ‘Inyanga-Umbezi,’ ‘Aloha,’ ‘Southern Lights’ (from somewhere Punta Arenas way), ‘Lodge of Rough Ashlars’ (and that Newfoundland Naval Brother looked it), two or three Stars of something or other, half-a-dozen cardinal virtues, variously arranged, hailing from Klondyke to Kalgoorlie, one Military Lodge on one of the fronts, thrown in with a severe Scots burr by my friend of the head-bandages, and the rest as mixed as the Empire itself. Just at the end there was a little stir. The silent Brother had begun to make noises; his companion tried to soothe him.
‘Let him be! Let him be!’ the Doctor called professionally. The man jerked and mouthed, and at last mumbled something unintelligible even to his friend, but a small dark P.M. pushed forward importantly.
‘It iss all right,’ he said. ‘He wants to say — ’ he spat out some yard-long Welsh name, adding, ‘That means Pembroke Docks, Worshipful Sir. We haf good Masons in Wales, too.’ The silent man nodded approval.
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, quite unmoved. ‘It happens that way sometimes. Hespere panta fereis, isn’t it? The Star brings ‘em all home. I must get a note of that fellow’s case after Lodge. I saw you didn’t care for music,’ he went on, ‘but I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with a little more. It’s a paraphrase from Micah. Our organist arranged it. We sing it antiphonally, as a sort of dismissal.’
Even I could appreciate what followed. The singing seemed confined to half-a-dozen trained voices answering each other till the last line, when the full Lodge came in. I give it as I heard it:
‘We have showed thee, O Man.
What is good.
What doth the Lord require of us?
Or Conscience’ self desire of us?
But to do justly-
But to love mercy.
And to walk humbly with our God.
As every Mason should.’
Then we were played and sung out to the quaint tune of the ‘Entered Apprentices’ Song.’ I noticed that the regular Brethren of the Lodge did not begin to take off their regalia till the lines
‘Great Kings, Dukes, and Lords
Have laid down their swords.’
They moved into the ante-room, now set for the Banquet, on the verse
‘Antiquity’s pride
We have on our side.
Which maketh men just in their station.’
The Brother (a big-boned clergyman) that I found myself next to at table told me the custom was ‘a fond thing vainly invented’ on the strength of some old legend. He laid down that Masonry should be regarded as an ‘intellectual abstraction.’ An Officer of Engineers disagreed with him, and told us how in Flanders, a year before, some ten or twelve Brethren held Lodge in what was left of a Church. Save for the Emblems of Mortality and plenty of rough ashlars, there was no furniture.
‘I warrant you weren’t a bit the worse for that,’ said the Clergyman. ‘The idea should be enough without trappings.’
‘But it wasn’t,’ said the other. ‘We took a lot of trouble to make our regalia out of camouflage-stuff that we’d pinched, and we manufactured our jewels from old metal. I’ve got the set now. It kept us happy for weeks.’
‘Ye were absolutely irregular an’ unauthorised. Whaur was your Warrant?’ said the Brother from the Military Lodge. ‘Grand Lodge ought to take steps against — ’
‘If Grand Lodge had any sense,’ a private three places up our table broke in, ‘it ‘ud warrant travelling Lodges at the front and attach first-class lecturers to ‘em.’
‘Wad ye confer degrees promiscuously?’ said the scandalised Scot.
‘Every time a man asked, of course. You’d have half the Army in.’
The speaker played with the idea for a little while, and proved that, on the lowest scale of fees, Grand Lodge would get huge revenues.
‘I believe,’ said the Engineer Officer thoughtfully, ‘I could design a complete travelling Lodge outfit under forty pounds weight.’
‘Ye’re wrong. I’ll prove it. We’ve tried ourselves,’ said the Military Lodge man; and they went at it together across the table, each with his own note-book.
The ‘Banquet’ was simplicity itself. Many of us ate in haste so as to get back to barracks or hospitals, but now and again a Brother came in from the outer darkness to fill a chair and empty a plate. These were Brethren who had been there before and needed no examination.
One man lurched in-helmet, Flanders mud, accoutrements and all-fresh from the leave-train.
‘‘Got two hours to wait for my train,’ he explained. ‘I remembered your night, though. My God, this is good!’
‘What is your train and from what station?’ said the Clergyman precisely. ‘Very well. What will you have to eat?’
‘Anything. Everything. I’ve thrown up a month’s rations in the Channel.’
He stoked himself for ten minutes without a word. Then, without a word, his face fell forward. The Clergyman had him by one already limp arm and steered him to a couch, where ho dropped and snored. No one took the trouble to turn round.
‘Is that usual too?’ I asked.
‘Why not?’ said the Clergyman. ‘I’m on duty to-night to wake them for their trains. They do not respect the Cloth on those occasions.’ He turned his broad back on me and continued his discussion with a Brother from Aberdeen by way of Mitylene where, in the intervals of mine-sweeping, he had evolved a complete theory of the Revelation of St. John the Divine in the Island of Patmos.
I fell into the hands of a Sergeant-Instructor of Machine Guns-by profession a designer of ladies’ dresses. He told me that Englishwomen as a class ‘lose on their corsets what they make on their clothes,’ and that ‘Satan himself can’t save a woman who wears thirty-shilling corsets under a thirty-guinea costume.’ Here, to my grief, he was buttonholed by a zealous Lieutenant of his own branch, and became a Sergeant again all in one click.
I drifted back and forth, studying the prints on the walls and the Masonic collection in the cases, while I listened to the inconceivable talk all round me. Little by little the company thinned, till at last there were only a dozen or so of us left. We gathered at the end of a table near the fire, the night-bird from Flanders trumpeting lustily into the hollow of his helmet, which some one had tipped over his face.
‘And how did it go with you?’ said the Doctor.
‘It was like a new world,’ I answered.
‘That’s what it is really.’ Brother Burges returned the gold pince-nez to their case and reshipped his silver spectacles. ‘Or that’s what it might be made with a little trouble. When I think of the possibilities of the Craft at this juncture I wonder — ’ He stared into the fire.
‘I wonder, too,’ said the Sergeant-Major slowly, ‘but-on the whole-I’m inclined to agree with you. We could do much with Masonry.’
‘As an aid-as an aid-not as a substitute for Religion,’ the Clergyman snapped.
‘Oh, Lord! Can’t we give Religion a rest for a bit?’ the Doctor muttered. ‘It hasn’t done so-I beg your pardon all round.’
The Clergyman was bristling. ‘Kamerad!’ the wise Sergeant-Major went on, both hands up. ‘Certainly not as a substitute for a creed, but as an average plan of life. What I’ve seen at the front makes me sure of it.’
Brother Burges came out of his muse. ‘There ought to be a dozen- twenty-other Lodges in London every night; conferring degrees too, as well as instruction. Why shouldn’t the young men join? They practise what we’re always preaching. Well! Well! We must all do what we can. What’s the use of old Masons if they can’t give a little help along their own lines?’
‘Exactly,’ said the Sergeant-Major, turning on the Doctor. ‘And what’s the darn u
se of a Brother if he isn’t allowed to help?’
‘Have it your own way then,’ said the Doctor testily. He had evidently been approached before. He took something the Sergeant-Major handed to him and pocketed it with a nod. ‘I was wrong,’ he said to me, ‘when I boasted of our independence. They get round us sometimes. This,’ he slapped his pocket, ‘will give a banquet on Tuesday. We don’t usually feed at matinees. It will be a surprise. By the way, try another sandwich. The ham are best.’ He pushed me a plate.
‘They are,’ I said. ‘I’ve only had five or six. I’ve been looking for them.’
‘‘Glad you like them,’ said Brother Lemming. ‘Fed him myself, cured him myself-at my little place in Berkshire. His name was Charlemagne. By the way, Doc, am I to keep another one for next month?’
‘Of course,’ said the Doctor with his mouth full. ‘A little fatter than this chap, please. And don’t forget your promise about the pickled nasturtiums. They’re appreciated.’ Brother Lemming nodded above the pipe he had lit as we began a second supper. Suddenly the Clergyman, after a glance at the clock, scooped up half-a-dozen sandwiches from under my nose, put them into an oiled paper bag, and advanced cautiously towards the sleeper on the couch.
‘They wake rough sometimes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Nerves, y’know.’ The Clergyman tip-toed directly behind the man’s head, and at arm’s length rapped on the dome of the helmet. The man woke in one vivid streak, as the Clergyman stepped back, and grabbed for a rifle that was not there.
‘You’ve barely half an hour to catch your train.’ The Clergyman passed him the sandwiches. ‘Come along.’
‘You’re uncommonly kind and I’m very grateful,’ said the man, wriggling into his stiff straps. He followed his guide into the darkness after saluting.
‘Who’s that?’ said Lemming.
‘Can’t say,’ the Doctor returned indifferently. ‘He’s been here before. He’s evidently a P.M. of sorts.’
‘Well! Well!’ said Brother Burges, whose eyelids were drooping. ‘We must all do what we can. Isn’t it almost time to lock up?’
‘I wonder,’ said I, as we helped each other into our coats, ‘what would happen if Grand Lodge knew about all this.’
‘About what?’ Lemming turned on me quickly.
‘A Lodge of Instruction open three nights and two afternoons a week- and running a lodging-house as well. It’s all very nice, but it doesn’t strike me somehow as regulation.’
‘The point hasn’t been raised yet,’ said Lemming. ‘We’ll settle it after the war. Meantime we shall go on.’
‘There ought to be scores of them,’ Brother Burges repeated as we went out of the door. ‘All London’s full of the Craft, and no places for them to meet in. Think of the possibilities of it! Think what could have been done by Masonry through Masonry for all the world. I hope I’m not censorious, but it sometimes crosses my mind that Grand Lodge may have thrown away its chance in the war almost as much as the Church has.’
‘Lucky for you the Padre is taking that chap to King’s Cross,’ said Brother Lemming, ‘or he’d be down your throat. What really troubles him is our legal position under Masonic Law. I think he’ll inform on us one of these days. Well, good night, all.’ The Doctor and Lemming turned off together.
‘Yes,’ said Brother Burges, slipping his arm into mine. ‘Almost as much as the Church has. But perhaps I’m too much of a Ritualist.’
I said nothing. I was speculating how soon I could steal a march on the Clergyman and inform against ‘Faith and Works No. 5837 E.C.’
To the Companions
Horace, Ode 17, Bk. V.
HOW comes it that, at even-tide.
When level beams should show most truth.
Man, failing, takes unfailing pride
In memories of his frolic youth?
Venus and Liber fill their hour;
The games engage, the law-courts prove;
Till hardened life breeds love of power
Or Avarice, Age’s final love.
Yet at the end, these comfort not —
Nor any triumph Fate decrees-
Compared with glorious, unforgot —
ten innocent enormities
Of frontless days before the beard.
When, instant on the casual jest.
The God Himself of Mirth appeared
And snatched us to His heaving breast.
And we-not caring who He was
But certain He would come again —
Accepted all He brought to pass
As Gods accept the lives of men...
Then He withdrew from sight and speech.
Nor left a shrine. How comes it now.
While Charon’s keel grates on the beach.
He calls so clear: ‘Rememberest thou?’?
The United Idolaters
HIS name was Brownell and his reign was brief. He came from the Central Anglican Scholastic Agency, a soured, clever, reddish man picked up by the Head at the very last moment of the summer holidays in default of Macrea (of Macrea’s House) who wired from Switzerland that he had smashed a knee mountaineering, and would not be available that term.
Looking back at the affair, one sees that the Head should have warned Mr. Brownell of the College’s outstanding peculiarity, instead of leaving him to discover it for himself the first day of the term, when he went for a walk to the beach, and saw ‘Potiphar’ Mullins, Head of Games, smoking without conceal on the sands. ‘Pot,’ having the whole of the Autumn Football challenges, acceptances, and Fifteen reconstructions to work out, did not at first comprehend Mr. Brownell’s shrill cry of: ‘You’re smoking! You’re smoking, sir!’ but he removed his pipe, and answered, placably enough: ‘The Army Class is allowed to smoke, sir.’
Mr. Brownell replied: ‘Preposterous!’
Pot, seeing that this new person was uninformed, suggested that he should refer to the Head.
‘You may be sure I shall-sure I shall, sir! Then we shall see!’
Mr. Brownell and his umbrella scudded off, and Pot returned to his match-plannings. Anon, he observed, much as the Almighty might observe black-beetles, two small figures coming over the Pebble-ridge a few hundred yards to his right. They were a Major and his Minor, the latter a new boy and, as such, entitled to his brother’s countenance for exactly three days-after which he would fend for himself. Pot waited till they were well out on the great stretch of mother-o’pearl sands; then caused his ground-ash to describe a magnificent whirl of command in the air.
‘Come on,’ said the Major. ‘Run!’
‘What for?’ said the Minor, who had noticed nothing.
‘‘Cause we’re wanted. Leg it!’
‘Oh, I can do that,’ the Minor replied and, at the end of the sprint, fetched up a couple of yards ahead of his brother, and much less winded.
‘Your Minor?’ said Pot, looking over them, seawards.
‘Yes, Mullins,’ the Major replied.
‘All right. Cut along!’ They cut on the word.
‘Hi! Fludd Major! Come back!’
Back fled the elder.
‘Your wind’s bad. Too fat. You grunt like a pig. ‘Mustn’t do it! Understand? Go away!’
‘What was all that for?’ the Minor asked on the Major’s return.
‘To see if we could run, you fool!’
‘Well, I ran faster than you, anyhow,’ was the scandalous retort.
‘Look here, Har-Minor, if you go on talking like this, you’ll get yourself kicked all round Coll. An’ you mustn’t stand like you did when a Prefect’s talkin’ to you.’
The Minor’s eyes opened with awe. ‘I thought it was only one of the masters,’ said he.
‘Masters! It was Mullins-Head o’ Games. You are a putrid young ass!’
By what seemed pure chance, Mr. Brownell ran into the School Chaplain, the Reverend John Gillett, beating up against the soft September rain that no native ever troubled to wear a coat for.
‘I was trying to catch you after lunch
,’ the latter began. ‘I wanted to show you our objects of local interest.’
‘Thank you! I’ve seen all I want,’ Mr. Brownell answered., Gillett, is there anything about me which suggests the Congenital Dupe?’
‘It’s early to say, yet,’ the Chaplain answered. ‘Who’ve you been meeting?’
‘A youth called Mullets, I believe.’ And, indeed, there was Potiphar, ground-ash, pipe, and all, quarter-decking serenely below the Pebbleridge.
‘Oh! I see. Old Pot-our Head of Games.’
‘He was smoking. He’s smoking now! Before those two little boys, too!’ Mr. Brownell panted. ‘He had the audacity to tell me that — ’
‘Yes,’ the Reverend John cut in. ‘The Army Class is allowed to smoke- not in their studies, of course, but within limits, out of doors. You see, we have to compete against the Crammers’ establishments, where smoking’s usual.’
This was true! Of the only school in England was this the cold truth, and for the reason given, in that unprogressive age.
‘Good Heavens!’ said Mr. Brownell to the gulls and the gray sea. ‘And I was never warned!’
‘The Head is a little forgetful. I ought to have — But it’s all right,’ the Chaplain added soothingly. ‘Pot won’t-er-give you away.’
Mr. Brownell, who knew what smoking led to, testified out of his twelve years’ experience of what he called the Animal Boy. He left little unexplored or unexplained.
‘There may be something in what you say,’ the Reverend John assented. ‘But as a matter of fact, their actual smoking doesn’t amount to much. They talk a great deal about their brands of tobacco. Practically, it makes them rather keen on putting down smoking among the juniors-as an encroachment on their privilege, you see. They lick ‘em twice as hard for it as we’d dare to.’
‘Lick!’ Mr. Brownell cried. ‘One expels! One expels! I know the end of these practices.’ He told his companion, in detail, with anecdotes and inferences, a great deal more about the Animal Boy.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 528