And why are we short of men? We have just heard that our divisions are each to be reduced by three battalions, because reinforcements are insufficient. Why? Is it due to wangling and muddle and political opportunism at home, or have our strategists bled England white? None of us can understand why the allied nations with all their immense reserves of material power have been baulked and beaten by this amazing people. We used to think in our innocence that our new armies would crash through to the Rhine and now we seem no nearer victory. Indeed we appear to be farther from it than ever. Russia is out, and next spring we shall have dozens of German divisions who have been set free massed against us on the western front.
No imagination, is that our tragedy? No subtlety, no powers of adaptation. Muddy thinking, and battles staged in impossible bogs. Our strategists seem obsessed with the symbol of the human battering-ram. Is it that they were born under the sign of Aries, and have the heads of rams?
It depresses me profoundly.
I do not understand.
Understanding? Is that the mysterious constituent that the whole world lacks? To understand and to know, and so to eliminate fear. I can remember reading Wells’s “Days of the Comet,” and the significance of the picture enthralls me. If our muddled, prejudiced, fear-ridden minds could only be clarified by some whiff of psychic oxygen. Peace to-morrow, peace and infinite laughter. Men getting out of the trenches, and meeting with laughter and mutual compassion.
“Good God, what fools we have been! Now, we understand.”
* * *
Yet, in craving for this spirit of understanding one receives shocks that make one realize the limitations of the professional mind, and how grossly obstructive the professional mentality can be. Discipline can become the ruthless cult of little objective things. Man is regarded as an automaton—a mechanism to be paraded and polished, and not as a poor, suffering, bewildered, sick yet somehow splendid soul.
This little incident is so illuminating.
It is a filthy day with slush everywhere, and a north-east wind blowing. About a hundred sick have come down from the line, and are paraded outside, waiting for the ambulances. The orderly sergeant puts his head into the orderly-room. I am in charge, for Fairfax and Gibbs have gone to tea with one of the other ambulances.
“Officer, sir, asking for the C.O.”
“Who is it, Simpson?”
“Brass hat, I should think, sir, but he is wearing a tin hat and a raincoat.”
I hurry out and am confronted by a tall, hawk-faced, elderly man with a grizzled moustache and angry eyes. A younger man is standing beside him. I salute, for I divine authority and its A.D.C.
“Are you the officer in charge here?”
“Yes, sir.”
He looks at my ribbon.
“What name?”
“Captain Brent, sir. Colonel Fairfax happens to be out.”
He turns and scrutinizes the sick parade. I admit that it is not a stimulating sight. These poor devils have been bogged for days in trenches and shell-holes in this bitter weather, and they are a forlorn, depressed, mud-coloured crowd.
“What’s this exhibition, Captain Brent?”
“The brigade’s sick, sir, just down from the line.”
He looks at me fiercely.
“Good God, man, haven’t these men any soldierly spirit? They look like a crowd of tramps.”
“They are sick, sir. Most of them have temperatures.”
He turns again and surveys that disconsolate crowd standing amid the slush in the north-east wind.
“Sick! They look it. I am sorry to say they look it.”
I suppose he expects me to call the poor parade to attention, but my sympathies are with the men and not with this fierce old gentleman who has never spent five minutes in a shell-hole. Doesn’t he understand that there are limits to human endurance, and that even great Cæsar became a whimpering child when fever shook him? But the ambulances roll up, and with careful politeness I ask authority if I may be permitted to get the men away. I do not want to keep them shivering in this bitter wind.
He answers me with sarcasm.
“By all means, doctor. It is not a parade that provides me with pleasure. No soldierly spirit.”
He gives me a curt nod, like a fierce bird pecking at something, and as he stalks off, I hear him say to his aide. “Did you ever see a worse set of scallawags, So-and-so? And that is what we have to finish the war with.” I long to go after him and say, “Scallawags! Who put these men to rot and freeze in a bog? You and the likes of you. And when they are sick and broken you pour scorn on them. By God, I should like to stuff the whole of G.H.Q. in shell-holes for a week.”
Yes, if I were to say that would the Red Beast in him understand? Of course not. I should be court-martialled, and be stuck like a silly, impertinent fly on a piece of flypaper.
I describe the incident to Fairfax, and he reminds me that criticism can be easy, and that this is the first occasion in history when men with the brains of colonels have been made responsible for controlling millions of men. I agree. But the vastness and complexity of modern war may appear more vast and complex than it really is. It seems to me to be like big business, and it strikes me that the Army Service Corps is the most efficient branch of the service because it is largely officered by men who understand their business. So we, too, the medical branch, are considerably efficient. It may be that our directing minds are those of charming country gentlemen who know something about horses and guns and wine, but who would be quite incapable of administering Harrod’s or the Army and Navy Stores.
We are stuck in the mud. But why? I can imagine an intelligent housemaid visiting the Ypres salient, and after viewing its vast filthiness, inquiring why the war was not removed to some nice, tidy place where it would be possible to use a carpet-sweeper. Surely our tanks might have been employed as a multitude of carpet-sweepers? We showed our hand when we had too few cards in it, and should have held it for a royal flush.
This life of ours is, after all, a very parochial affair. We are a little community embedded in the body of this vast male mass, and our world is a circumscribed one. We pay visits and receive them, but our contacts are casual and not intimate. We see a little of the infantry and a little of the gunners and the R.E.s, but their lives are just as circumscribed as ours. Our interests are somewhat primitive and narrow: letters from home, parcels, latrine rumours, the adventure of going into the line or leaving it, excitement over the amenities of new billets, our interminable games of Bridge. My impression is that we are growing a very stupid and intellectually mud-stuck crowd. Medical shop is taboo, and we rarely discuss our work, perhaps because we are mere collectors of sick and wounded, and are not permitted to retain an interesting case. We do not know what happens to our cases after we have passed them on. We are, indeed, one part of the sausage machine. We do not read any books that matter, nor do we discuss the economic, the domestic significance of the war. Harker is the only officer who retains any intellectual interest in life, but when in the mess he happens to speak of the Mediterranean race, Carless asks him gaily, “What’s that, Harker? A kind of dago?”
I can only conclude that when men are massed in herds they become like herds, to be provoked only by the feminine mind. I can suppose that this professional inertia is more or less universal, and that a Corps mess is just as bovine as we seem to be. Let a man betray brains or a temperament and he is suspect.
But we do meet problems in psychology. I have just experienced one. I was detailed for duty at D.H.Q. for ten days while Bliss was on leave. Rankin was up the line, when a strange officer arrived as a reinforcement, one of those bulbous little men with a pompous but worried manner. I interviewed him, and he began by telling me that he was forty-one, and that he had come from Salonica, and that at Salonica no medical officer over forty was sent up the line.
This intrigued me, as he looked supremely fit and well larded.
“My C.O. is forty-five, and there are two officers in
one of our other ambulances who are over forty. What’s the idea?”
He shuffled his feet and became throaty.
“It wasn’t supposed to be fair. One doesn’t react to the conditions. Besides, I’m married.”
“Same here.”
“And I have a child.”
“So have I.”
“But you are a headquarters wallah.”
This annoyed me. I told him to wait, and when Colonel Rankin returned, I passed the careful gentleman on to him. Rankin has a rather quick temper, and possibly my man of forty attempted to argue with him, but Rankin emerged from his sanctum with his tawny eyes rather bright.
“Captain Brent.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Post this officer to the 25th Leicesters, to relieve Captain Snell, who will return to his Field Ambulance.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Where are the Leicesters?”
“Out, in hutments, sir, I think, in Canooga Camp.”
“Very well. The Ford can take this officer and his kit to the Leicesters. Give him a letter to the C.O.”
* * *
Three days later I have returned to our headquarters and am at work in the orderly-room on some new instructions that have been issued to us, when Sergeant Simpson comes in to tell me that a medical officer is reporting sick. He has asked for the C.O., but Fairfax has gone to call on a friend at No. 59 C.C.S.
“Send him in, Simpson.”
My man from Salonica paddles in. I can only describe his walk as a kind of paddling movement. He is unshaven, tremulous, pinched and yellow, smothered up in his greatcoat, and at the first glance I diagnose him as a case of ’flu. He flops down on a bench against the wall, and begins to shake and bobble like a large baby.
“Hallo, what’s the trouble?”
He rolls his head at me.
“I, I—can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. My nerves, yes, absolutely gone.”
“What’s been the matter? Where have you come from?”
“The camp.”
“Canooga Camp?”
“Yes.”
“Then the Leicesters haven’t gone into the line yet?”
“No; but we were bombed last night. Horrible. I—can’t—stand it.”
“Any casualties?”
“No.”
I understand what fear is, and how it can reduce one to mere quaking flesh, but never have I seen so lamentable and shameless an exhibition of unregenerate funk. The orderly-room sergeant and two clerks are present with us, and I turn and make a sign to them, and they leave their tables and go out.
“Does your C.O. know you have come to report sick?”
“No.”
“Good God, man, do you mean to say you have sneaked off and left your unit just because a few bombs burst near the camp?”
But he is quite shameless, and I am trying to estimate how much mean cunning there is behind his quakings. Is the man playing a part?
“I simply can’t stand it. I’m too old. I’m a sensitive fellow.”
Am I his judge or keeper? I, too, have felt capable of any meanness in the extremity of fear, and I try to reason with him.
“We all get cold feet at times, you know. One can be quite honest about it. But, look here, you can’t be sent back with nerves from a place like Canooga Camp. It seems to me you haven’t even tried to face up to things.”
“I can’t help it. I’m too old.”
“You mean, you won’t try.”
And suddenly he flares out into futile, spluttering anger.
“Damn it, and what’s it to do with you. I suppose because you’re wearing that bit of ribbon——”
I go and sit down at my table.
“I was only trying to help you. I can’t deal with your case. It’s pretty serious. You will have to wait and see my C.O.”
He looks at me. His chin quivers. He bursts into tears.
“You’re all so hard. You don’t understand. I can’t, can’t control myself. Look at my hand.”
He holds out his right hand, and I observe its tremblings.
“I’m like that all over. I’m not fit for any sort of responsibility. Can’t you see?”
“Yes, I can see. I’m afraid you will have to wait until the C.O. comes back. You had better come to the mess.”
“Can’t I sit here? I can’t face people, I can’t, really.”
Nor do I want to drag this wretched member of my profession about in public, or to exhibit him to the men. I feel somehow that his shame is mine, and that but for the grace of God and another man’s understanding I might have exhibited myself like this stuttering, slobbering coward. Meanwhile, the orderly-room is ceasing to function, and we happen to be particularly busy.
I get up and go to the door, which is nothing but an army blanket.
“Look here, man, pull yourself together. My staff has to come in and work, but you can stay here till my C.O. turns up.”
I call the orderly-room staff in, and stroll across to the mess to see if Fairfax has returned. His ambulance rolls up just as I reach the door.
“What’s the trouble, Steevie?”
It is a jest between us that my face is a kind of human clock-dial to him.
“I have something of a problem for you, sir.”
We go into the mess where the solemn Toogood is censoring letters with meticulous care, and I explain the problem of the Salonica gentleman to Fairfax. I see his blue eyes grow prominent. Apparently he is much less moved to mercy than I am, perhaps because he is responsible for other men’s lives, and a shirker is a traitor to his fellows.
“Do you mean to say the man has left his unit without a word, and slunk away here to us?”
“That seems to be the situation.”
“It’s pretty damnable. I may have to pass this on to Rankin. Fetch the fellow across, Stephen.”
I go and collect the poor wretch, and introduce him into the mess. Fairfax is standing with his back to the stove and as I look at him I think how I might have felt had I been in “Salonica’s” shoes, scrutinized and judged by those fierce blue eyes. The fellow is still maintaining his tremors; even his round head seems to shake like some bulbous blossom on a stalk. He does not attempt to salute Fairfax.
“Do you mind if I sit down. I’m so shaky.”
Fairfax observes him in silence, and had I to bear such a scrutiny I should have felt the shame of it eating into the skin of my soul.
“So I see. Sit down. So you want to be relieved of all danger?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I—I can’t stand it.”
Never have I heard a man lashed as Fairfax lashes this spineless creature. He is quite merciless, and I am aware of Toogood’s mild, prim face looking frightened.
“Listen: I have to send my officers into danger, and you come and snivel and ask to be relieved from bearing what all decent men have to bear. Don’t you realize that funking means leaving some other man to do your job? Why should an officer with guts have to endure things while you sneak off into safety?”
He just sits and stares round-eyed at Fairfax. I see his fat chin bobbling up and down.
“You haven’t any right to insult me. I can’t help being hypersensitive.”
“Insult you! Is it possible to insult a man who is without shame? Haven’t you any pride?”
“You’ll excuse me, but I am a particularly proud person. You see, you don’t understand a neurosis like mine.”
“Oh, I’m not capable of making a diagnosis? Brent, do you mind ordering an ambulance. I had better take this officer to divisional headquarters. I think his case demands further investigation.”
* * *
Fairfax is absent less than an hour. He returns, minus the patient, and his face has recovered its kindness. I have kept tea waiting for him.
“Well, that’s that, Stephen.”
“Any result, sir?”
“We have sent the wretched beast down. What is the use of keeping a thing like that? I suppose he will be po
sted to some Base Hospital, and will describe to the nurses his remarkable experiences in the line.”
He helps himself to jam.
“If I had had my way I would have pushed his fat head into the thick of things, but Rankin overruled me. I suppose he is right. It isn’t fair to the fighting men to fob them off with rubbish like that.”
He is silent a moment, and then he turns kindly to Toogood.
“I’m sorry, Toogood, but I have orders to attach you to the Leicesters. You will have to report to their C.O. to-night.”
Poor Toogood’s face falls into shocked flaccidity for a second or two. How I know that feeling! But he is a good lad, in spite of or perhaps because of his piety. He smiles.
“Shall I go and get my kit packed, sir?”
Fairfax nods at him.
“I’ll ask for you back when some reinforcement becomes available, something with self-respect. You will be all right, Toogood.”
“I hope so, sir.”
Christmas.
Let us speak of cheerful things, even of the sentimental saunterings one allows oneself in day-dreams.
The macabre is not always with us, and were we shut up in a charnel-house we should find it necessary to play a merry tattoo on some ancient skull with a pair of fibulæ for drumsticks.
We are out of the line, and in a hamlet in the Hazebrouck area. It is a land of flat and gentle fields and towering poplars, and it is sufficient pleasure to me to look at these unscarred fields and unmaimed trees. White mists hang about, and going from my billet to the mess I see the sun or the moon through silver vapour. The landscape is soft and blurred, like a pastel.
Bond has foraged finely for Christmas. The men have beer, turkey and plum-pudding. Saintley, our highbrow among the sergeants, has organized a concert party, and I discover that my man Finch is a consummate clown. We have a roaring dinner in the mess, and then transfer ourselves to the barn and sit among the men. Gibbs is called on for a song, and brings down the shingles with “Annie Laurie.”
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