A Student in Arms: Second Series

Not a bad chorus, either, for the trenches! You can't stop a shell from bursting in your trench, even if Mr. Rawson can! You can't stop the rain, or prevent a light from going up just as you are half-way over the parapet ... so what on earth is the use of worrying? If you can't alter things, you must accept them, and make the best of them.

Yet some men do worry, and by so doing effectually destroy their peace of mind without doing any one any good. What is worse, it is often the religious man who worries. I have even heard those whose care was for the soldier's soul, deplore the fact that he did not worry! I have heard it said that the soldier is so careless, realizes his position so little, is so hard to touch! And, on the other hand, I have heard the soldier say that he did not want religion, because it would make him worry. Strange, isn't it, if Christianity means worry and anxiety, and if it is only the heathen who is cheerful and free from care? Yet the feeling that this is so undoubtedly exists, and it must have some foundation. Perhaps it is one of the subjects which ought to engage the attention of Churchmen in these days of "repentance and hope."

Of course, worrying is about as un-Christian as anything can be. "μη μεριμνατε τη ψυχη υμων"—"Don't worry about your life"—is the Master's express command. In fact, the call of Christ is a call to something very like the cheerfulness of the soldier in the trenches. It is a call to a life of external turmoil and internal peace. "I came not to bring peace, but a sword"; "take up your cross and follow Me"; "ye shall be hated"; "he that would save his life shall lose it." It is a call to take risks, to risk poverty, unpopularity, humiliation, death. It is a call to follow the way of the Cross. But the way of the Cross is also the way of peace, the peace of God that passeth understanding. It is a way of freedom from all cares, and anxieties, and fears; but not a way of escape from them.

Yet worrying is often a feature of the actual Churchman. The actual Churchman is often a man whose conscience is an incubus. He can do nothing without weighing motives and calculating results. It makes him introspective to an extent that is positively morbid. He is continually probing himself to discover whether his motives are really pure and disinterested, continually trying to decide whether he is "worthy" or "fit" to undertake this or that responsibility, or to face this or that eventuality. He is full of suspicion of himself, of self-distrust. In the trenches he is always wondering whether he is fit to die, whether he will acquit himself worthily in a crisis, whether he has done anything that he ought not to have done, or left undone anything that he ought to have done. Especially if he is an officer, his responsibility weighs on him terribly, and I have known more than one good fellow and conscientious Churchman worry himself into thinking that he was unfit for his responsibilities as an officer, and ask to be relieved of them.

There must be something wrong about the Christianity of such men. Their over-conscientiousness seems to create a wholly wrong sense of proportion, an exaggerated sense of the significance of their own actions and characters which is as far removed as can be from the childlike humility which Christ taught. The truth seems to be that we lay far too much stress on conscience, self-examination, and personal salvation, and that we trust the Holy Spirit far too little.

If we look to the teaching of Christ, we do not find any recommendation to meticulous self-analysis, but rather we are taught a kind of spiritual recklessness, an unquestioning confidence in what seem to be right impulses, and that quite regardless of results. We are not told to be careful to spend each penny to the best advantage; but we are told that if our money is preventing us from entering the Kingdom, we had better give it all away. We are not told to set a high value on our lives, and to spend them with care for the good of the Kingdom. On the contrary, we are told to risk our lives recklessly if we would preserve them. A sense of anxious responsibility is discouraged. If our limbs cause us to offend, we are advised to cut them off.

The whole teaching of the Gospels is that we have got to find freedom and peace in trusting ourselves implicitly to the care of God. We have got to follow what we think right quite recklessly, and leave the issue to God; and in judging between right and wrong we are only given two rules for our guidance. Everything which shows love for God and love for man is right, and everything which shows personal ambition and anxiety is wrong.

What all this means as far as the trenches are concerned is extraordinarily clear. The Christian is advised not to be too pushing or ambitious. He is advised to "take the lowest room." But if he is told to move up higher, he has got to go. If he is given responsibility, there is no question of refusing it. He has got to do his best and leave the issue to God. If he does well, he will be given more responsibility. But there is no need to worry. The same formula holds good for the new sphere. Let him do his best and leave the issue to God. If he does badly, well, if he did his best, that means that he was not fit for the job, and he must be perfectly willing to take a humbler job, and do his best at that.

As for personal danger, he must not think of it. If he is killed, that is a sign that he is no longer indispensable. Perhaps he is wanted elsewhere. The enemy can only kill the body, and the body is not the important thing about him. Every man who goes to war must, if he is to be happy, give his body, a living sacrifice, to God and his country. It is no longer his. He need not worry about it. The peace of God which passeth all understanding simply comes from not worrying about results because they are God's business and not ours, and in trusting implicitly all impulses that make for love of God and man. Few of us perhaps will ever attain to a full measure of such faith; but at least we can make sure that our "Christianity" brings us nearer to it.

(Curtain)

ACT I. DAWN

CECIL is discovered lying behind a wall of sandbags. On one side are the sandbags, and on the other an idyllic spring scene, with flowers and orchards seen in the half-light of a spring morning. The dawn breaks gently, and soon bullets begin to ping through the air, flattening themselves against the sandbags, or passing over CECIL's head. He wakes and yawns, and then composes himself with his eyes open.

Enter Allegorical personages: FATHER SUN, MOTHER EARTH, and a chorus of GRASSES, POPPIES, CORNFLOWERS, RAGGED ROBINS, DAISIES, BEETLES, BEES, FLIES, and insects of all kinds.

(The children dance away delightedly, while CECIL watches them, fascinated.)

(RANDOM BULLET jumps over the sandbags into the dug-out, and jibbers impotently at CECIL, who glances up at him with a look of disgust.)

(RANDOM BULLET jumps out of sight, and MOTHER EARTH and FATHER SUN move disgustedly away.)

(Curtain.)

ACT II. MIDDAY

SCENE. The same. CECIL as before, but sweltering in the sun. Enter the SPIRIT OF THIRST.

(Curtain.)

ACT III. LATE AFTERNOON

SCENE. As before. CECIL is discovered reading a letter from home.

(A sound as of an express train is heard, followed by the roar of an explosion, while a dense cloud of smoke and dust rises immediately in view of the trench.)

(The sounds are repeated as a second shell drops, rather nearer. A Shadow appears round the dug-out, and hesitates.)

(A third shell bursts nearer still.)

(CECIL pauses in a listening attitude).

(Enter the twin Spirits of HONOUR and DUTY, Spirits of a very noble and courtly mien.)

(The bombardment increases in intensity. Shrapnel bursts overhead. Shells with increasing rapidity and accuracy explode both short and over the trench. The hail of bullets is continuous. An N.C.O. rushes by shouting "Stand to"; men rush from the dug-outs and seize their rifles; CECIL, like the others, grasps his rifle and sees that it is fully loaded.)

(Curtain.)

ACT IV. SUNSET

SCENE. The same, but the wall of sand-bags bags is broken in many places. The dead lie half-buried beneath them. CECIL lies, badly wounded, against a gap in the wall, his rifle by his side. HONOUR and DUTY kneel beside him tenderly. The last rays of the sun light up his painful smile. THIRST stands gloomily over him, and the wild flowers are peeping at him with sleepy eyes through the gap, while MOTHER EARTH calls to them to go to bed. FATHER SUN leans sadly over the broken parapet.

(Enter the MASTER, flowers shyly following him. HONOUR and DUTY raise CECIL gently to a standing position.)

(CECIL, with a look of wonder and joy, is borne forward.)

(Curtain.)

MY HOME AND SCHOOL³

A Fragment of Autobiography

I

MY HOME

What is one to say of home? It is difficult to know. I find that biographers are particular about the date of birth, the exact address of the babe, the social position and ancestry of the parent. I suppose that it is all that they can learn. But as an autobiographer I want to do something better; to give a picture of the home where, as I can now see, ideals, tastes, prejudices and habits were formed which have persisted through all the internal revolutions that have since upheaved my being.

I try to form the picture in my mind, and a crowd of detail rushes in which completely destroys its simplicity and harmony. How hard it is to judge, even at this distance, what are the salient features. I must try, but I know that from the point of view of psychological development I may easily miss out the very factors which were really most important.

I remember a big house, in a row of other big houses, in a side street leading from the East Cliff at Brighton right up to the edge of the bare rolling downs. It was exactly like almost every other house in that part of Brighton—stucco fronted, with four stories and a basement, three windows in front on each of the upper stories, and two windows and a door on the ground floor and basement. At the back was a small garden, with flower beds surrounding a square of gravel, and a tricycle house in one corner. There was a back door in this garden, which gave on to a street of cottages. This back door was a point of strategic importance.

But I need not describe the house in detail. It was exactly like thousands of other houses built in the beginning of the nineteenth century. High, respectable, ugly and rather inconvenient, with many stairs, two or three big rooms, a lot of small ones and no bathroom. It was essentially a family house, intended for people of moderate means and large families. Nowadays they build houses which are prettier, and have bathrooms; but they are not meant for large families.

We were a large family, and a fairly noisy one. Moreover, we were singularly self-sufficing. We hadn't many friends, we didn't entertain much, we had dinner in the middle of the day, and supper in the evening.

There was my father who was a recluse, my mother who was essentially our mother, the two girls and four boys. I was an afterthought, being seven years younger than my next brother, who for seven years had been called B. (for baby), and couldn't escape from it even after my appearance.

In addition to these, B. and I both had inseparable friends, who lived within a stone's throw. Ronnie was my alter ego till I was fourteen: so much so that I had no other friend. Even now, though our ways have kept us apart, and our interests and opinions are fundamentally different, we can sit in each other's rooms with perfect content. We know too much of each other for it to be possible to pretend to be what we are not. We sit and are ourselves, naked and unashamed so to speak, and it is very restful.

Pictures float before my mind. Let me select a few. I see a rather fat, stolid little boy in a big airy nursery at the top of the house, sitting in the middle of the floor playing with bricks. Outside it is gusty and wet, and the small boy hopes that he will be allowed to stay in all the afternoon, and play with bricks. But that is not to be. A small thin man, with gentle grey eyes, short curly beard, an old black greatcoat and a black square felt hat, comes in. The child must have some air. The child is resentful, but resigned, is wrapped up well, put in his pram and wheeled up and down the Madeira Road.

"Pa" didn't appear very much except on some such errand; but "Ma" was in and out all the time. "Ma" was everything, the only woman who has ever had my whole love, my whole trust and has made my heart ache with the desire to show my love.

A later picture. The boy is bigger, and not so fat. He no longer has a nurse. He has vacated the nursery, which is now tenanted by his big sisters. He has a little room all his own: a very small room, looking west. The south-west gales beat upon the window in the winter, and not so far away is the roar of the sea. It is good to curl up in a nice warm little bed, and listen to the howling of the wind and the waves.

In the morning come lessons from his eldest sister G. The schoolroom has rings and a trapeze, a bookshelf full of boys' books, and cupboards full of stone bricks, cannon and soldiers. The boy's mind is set on bricks and soldiers. Lessons and walks with "Ma" and his sisters or Ronnie and his nurse down the town are a nuisance. They interfere with the building of cathedrals and the settling of the destinies of nations by the arbitrament of war.

It was a stolid, placid boy, intensely wrapt up in his cathedrals and his generals, intensely devoted to "Ma," and regarding all else as rather a nuisance. Ronnie he liked. He liked going to tea with him, and going walks with him and his nurse; but they didn't have much in common except cricket. Ronnie had big soldiers which could not be knocked down by cannon balls, and which couldn't make history because they were few in number, and nearly all English. Mine were of every European power, and many Asiatic ones. They were diminutive and numerous, could take shelter in a forest of pine cones and were admirably suited to be mown down at the cannon's mouth. The King of England was a person with a fine figure. He had one leg and one arm, and the plume of his dragoon's helmet was shorn off; but his slight, erect figure still looked noble on a stately white palfrey. The French armies were usually commanded by Marshal Petit, a gay fellow with his full complement of limbs, who sat a horse well. He had a younger brother almost equally distinguished. I have no recollection of a King of France. He must have been a poor fellow. The Sultan of Turkey, the Khedive, and Li Hung Chang still live in my memory as persons of distinction; but I have no personal recollection of the Tsar, or the Emperors of Germany or Austria, or of the King of Italy, though I know they existed.

Into this placid existence turmoil would enter three times a year. The elder brothers, Hugh, Tommy and B., would come home for the holidays from Sandhurst and Rugby, and R. would appear, and become almost one of the family. Then would occur troublous times, with a few advantages and many disadvantages.

"Tommy" was a curiously solitary youth as I remember him, who played the 'cello with great perseverance and considerable success. At soldiers he was something of a genius, though his games were of an intricacy which failed to commend itself to me altogether. In his great soldier days he not only made history, but wrote it—a height to which I never attained.

In the holidays, cricket in the back garden became a great feature, and Tommy was a demon bowler. I fancy, too, that the very elaborate but highly satisfactory form of the game must have originated with him. In the back garden we not merely played cricket, but made history—cricket history. Two county sides were written out, and we batted alternately for the various cricketers, doing our best to imitate their styles. We bowled also in a rough imitation of the styles of the county bowlers whom we represented. This arrangement secured us against personal rivalry, kept up a tremendous interest in first-class cricket and enabled matches to continue, if necessary, for weeks at a time. It encouraged, too, a fair, impersonal and unprejudiced view of outside events.

In cricket, war and music we undoubtedly benefited by the holidays, especially in the summer, when we used to go to the country, often occupying a school-house with gym, cricket nets and a fair-sized garden. Ecclesiastical architecture suffered, however....

Hugh was a great and glorious person, a towering beneficent despot when he did appear.... As for me I adored him with whole-hearted hero-worship. He was the "protector of the poor," who kept the rest of us in order. He was a magnificent person who revolutionized the art of war by the introduction of explosives. He was a tremendous walker, and first taught me to love great tramps over the downs, to sniff appreciatively the glorious air and to love their bare, storm-swept outlines. Hugh stood for all that is wholesome, strenuous, out of doors in my life. Without him I should have been a mere sedentary. Among other things he was an enthusiastic boxer and gymnast. For these pursuits I sturdily feigned enthusiasm and suppressed timidity.

A few more pictures. First, Sunday morning. Gertrude goes off to Sunday School. She likes teaching and bossing. Hilda and Hugh, who are greater pals than brother and sister can often be, go off to St. James', where there will be good music and an interesting sermon. Tommy goes to St. Mark's, a good Protestant place, or to the beach, where curious and recondite doctrines are weekly disputed. B. goes to St. George's, protesting. There is plenty of room for his hat, there is a congenially aggressive spirit against Rome and it slightly irritates Ma. Pa is not up yet. Ma and I go to All Souls', because it is the nearest poor church, and Ma finds it easier to worship where there are no pew rents, and the seats are uncushioned, and there are few rich people. I am ever loyal to Ma.

I often wonder whether the reason why my family are all Churchgoers now is not that at that time we could choose our church.

The next picture is Sunday night. "Pa" and I, and perhaps some of the other boys, set out for St. Paul's, at the other end of the town. Then, after the service, follows an immense walk all through the slums of the town. We talk of Australia, where Pa once had a sheep run; of theology, of the past and the future. This weekly walk is something of a privilege, and rather solemn. It makes me feel older.

It is spring. I am at Rugby, and in the "San" with ophthalmia. The South African war is raging. Hugh is there. I am told that Hugh is dead. He has been shot in a glorious but futile charge at Paardeberg. I can't realize it. I am an object of interest, of envy almost, to the whole school. The flag is half-mast because my brother is dead. Every one is kind, touched. I put on an air as of a martyr.

I get a heartbroken letter from my mother. Will I come home? Or hadn't I better go to Uncle Jack's? If I go home we shall make each other worse. It is better for me than for Maurice, who is with the fleet in the Mediterranean with no one to comfort him.

Ma has had a great shock. She feels it desperately. She thinks all the others feel it as much. Except Hilda, we don't. There is a huge piece taken out of Ma's life and Hilda's life, because they were so unselfishly devoted to Hugh. Pa, also, has lost much, but he is a philosopher.

I go to Uncle Jack's and shoot rabbits. The holidays come and go. Tommy is at Oxford; I am at Rugby. Pa is immersed in theological speculation about the next world; B. is in the Mediterranean. Ma sends Gertrude and Hilda away for a long change. They go, and come back. Something about Ma frightens them. She and Pa come near Rugby and stay with Uncle Jack. The holidays come. I learn that for the first time for about twenty years Ma is to go away without Pa. I am to meet her at Hereford, and we are to go to Wales. Ma forgets things. She is more loving than ever, but her memory is going. We go to communion together in the little village church.

A few weeks later. We are back in Brighton. An Australian uncle and family are staying with us. Ma is ill in bed. I get up at 6 A.M., tramp over the downs and in a place I wot of, some five miles away, I gather heather for Ma. I run. I get back by 8.30. I find my uncle and cousins getting into a cab. Some one says, "How lovely! Are these for me?" I grip them in despair. They are for Ma. "Quite right," says someone. A day or two later my heather was placed, still blooming, on Ma's grave.

I was sixteen then. Six years later I return home from abroad. Within a few weeks of my return I am sitting in Pa's room in agony, listening to him fight for breath. The fight at last weakens. I hear him whisper, "Help! help!" I set my teeth. The others come in. There is silence. All is over. I am given my father's ring. It is my most treasured possession.

Henceforth all I have left of home is Hilda, for she alone is unmarried. Ever since my mother's death she has been my confidante. As far as was possible she has taken Ma's place in my life, and I have taken Hugh's place in hers. We are substitutes. For that reason as we get older we get to know each other better, and to know better how much we can give to each other. There is more criticism between us than there would have been between Ma and me, and Hilda and Hugh. But it has its advantages. We live apart, but we correspond weekly, and holiday together. It is all that is left of home, and it is infinitely precious.

Now that I have written these pages I can see as I have never seen before how much the child was father of the man. Since those home days I have had more variety of experience perhaps than falls to the lot of most men, and I would almost say more varied and more epoch-making friendships. Yet in these pages that I have written I seem to see all the essential and salient features of my character already mirrored and formed.

I am still by nature lethargic and placid. I could still occupy myself contentedly With bricks and soldiers, art and history, and trouble no one. But there is still that other element, instilled by Hugh—a love of the open air, of struggle with the elements, in lonely desert places.

I have never lost the craving for true religion, which induced my mother to go to a poor church to worship, and to visit the drunken and helpless in their slums. I have never lost the desire for her singleness of mind, and simple loyalty to Christ and His Church. At the same time I have never lost my father's inquiring spirit, broad view, love of doctrine tempered by reason and founded on history and tested by human experience. When these two beloved ones passed from this world I learnt the meaning of the text, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." My heart has never been wholly in this world.

So, too, I have always been a man of few friends. Ronnie has had many successors; but seldom more than one at a time. I have never cared much for society. My father and mother neither of them attached much importance to conventions, or to the fictitious values which society puts on clothes or money or position. I have always looked rather for some one to admire, some one whose ideals and personality were congenial, whatever their position or occupation. I have also, on the whole, always preferred comfort to show, simple to elaborate living. This I trace to the simple comfort and naturalness of my old home.

Footnote 3: (return)

"A Student" left a great deal of manuscript, among which this fragment of autobiography is not the least interesting.

II

SCHOOL

I went to a day school kept by Ronnie's father when I was nine. At least, it was a day school for me; but nearly all the boys were boarders. I worked fairly hard, and got prizes. I was fairly good at cricket, and not much good at football. I had only one friend—Ronnie—and about two enemies, both of whom were day boys, and whom I should have liked to have fought if I had dared. My memories of the school are few. I best remember leaving home, and going back, and also playing cricket. Ronnie's father lives as a just and straightforward gentleman, who never caned a boy except for what was mean or dirty, and whom we all loved and respected. But then I have known and loved him and his wife all my life. If our house was a second home to Ronnie, theirs has always been a second home to me.

There was one master whom I liked, and who perhaps did something to develop my character. He was fond of poetry and history, and from him I learnt—an easy lesson for me—to love history; but what is more, he first gave me a glimmering idea, which was to develop long after, that the classics are literature, and not torture.

I left there to go to Rugby.

Never did a boy enter Rugby with better chances. The memory of my three brothers still lived in the house. They had all achieved distinction in games, and been leading prefects (or sixths as they are called at Rugby) in the house. Many masters remembered them for good, particularly Jacky, the housemaster, who had loved them all, especially Hugh.