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© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved. This publication is protected by Copyright and written permission should be obtained
from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
cases with religious symbols and in some with the armorial device of
Westphalia. As they walked they sang, with the softness of
childhood, songs of the countryside.
It was pleasant when in the midst of our worries to listen to the
beat of childish feet and the echo of childish voices between the
lines of high narrow houses of this quiet Westphalian village. Curious
incidents, unimportant in themselves, remain in one’s memory for all
time.
We had intended to drive out of the country through Bentheim,
the same route by which we entered. But when the police examined
us at Rheine, though they showed no desire to detain us, they told
us that we must divert our course through Burgsteinfurt and leave
Germany by Gronau, reaching Enschede in Holland. This meant a
journey increased by forty miles, a serious matter under the then
existing critical conditions.
The first few miles out of Rheine passed by with surprising ease.
Then as we passed along a straight stretch of road close to Ochtrup
we were stopped by a patrol standing or rather reeling in front of a
public-house. These half-dozen men, bored with inaction, had
improved the shining hour by drinking beer until all the world
seemed changed. They were armed heavily with ancient rifles, each
obviously loaded. Our unfortunate belongings were again dragged
into view and a hilarious examination followed, the while two of the
more drunken men tried to show their belief that we were good
fellows by kissing us both with beery enthusiasm. Finally, we were
allowed to go amidst their drunken cheers. We had covered about
half a mile when several bullets whistled by, despatched by our late
friends as a further token of their joyous sporting instincts! None hit
us and we passed on into Ochtrup, where the most amazing incident
of all befell us. We were taken into the Town Hall and were passed
as unsuspicious when, suddenly, the manner of our captors changed
from smiles to frowns. A chauffeur had arrived who swore that he
recognised us as two suspects who had escaped from custody at
Buckedorf, a village some miles on the Berlin side of Minden.
Nothing could shake him in his accusation and things looked
unutterably black for us. Tempers are hasty when war is the
common occupation, and sentences of death at the worst are only
‘regrettable mistakes’ when too much haste has been used. Some
open packets of cartridges on the table added nothing to the
pleasure of our feelings. A woman, who alone could speak English
with any fluency, was brought in to translate and she, too, did little
to improve our position. From her attitude one supposes she had
met incivility in England during her visit to our country.
Suddenly it struck us that perhaps the man had seen us at
Minden, and as we had a pass from that town all would be well if we
could convince him of his mistake. To our joy he at once admitted
that he was wrong and we were permitted to leave.
On arrival at Gronau we found that the car must remain in
Germany, so we drove to the station in order to find out whether
trains still ran. Here, to our surprise, we were again arrested by the
Customs authorities and were hauled before the Burgomaster and
some local councillors. We had as translator a German-American
who, unpleasant in his prosperous appearance, suggested we should
answer the questions in a way prompted by him. This we refused, as
the object of lying did not appear clear to us. It was well, as later it
appeared that one at least of those present could speak English with
ease.
At this stage in the journey appeared one of those amazing
coincidences that occur as one passes through life. As our names
were given in the course of the written evidence, an old councillor
asked me in English if I came from Lancashire. When I admitted this
he said that forty years before he had been working in that county
and during that time he had been befriended by a man of my name.
It appeared on a further description that this good Samaritan was
closely related to me! This fortunate incident had, I am sure, some
effect on our position.
In the end the Burgomaster telephoned to the G.O.C. at Munster,
putting our case as favourably as possible, and describing us as
Americans. Permission was given by this higher authority for our
release. A local mill owner who had given us every assistance
garaged the car, and undertook to take care of it. Thus did we part
in a friendly mood.
An hour later we entered Enschede after a long argument with the
Customs officer, who thought us too dirty to be respectable. Next
day found us at the Hague, where, in our rags but happy, we dined
at the Hôtel des Indes. Here we read the Times and heard of the
declaration of war. That night we crossed to Harwich.

Note.—Keating on arrival in town applied for and was given a

commission in the Royal Flying Corps. Later he transferred to the
Irish Guards. On January 20, 1915, he was killed in France during
bombing practice by the premature explosion of a bomb which he
was using for demonstration purposes. So ended a life of
enthusiasm. The world lost a very gallant gentleman in Harry Sheehy
Keating. Yet

At the door of life, at the gate of breath

There are worse things waiting for men than death.
 JAN ISSEL.
In the month of August 1914 Mr. Haseldine of Culme House in
South Devon was as clearly persuaded as every other patriotic Briton
that we had got to beat the Germans, cost what it might, and what
it might chance to cost him individually he well knew, his only son
being an officer in the Guards. So he was scarcely disposed to
sympathise with a man who, having no less than four sons, made it
a great grievance that the youngest of them was threatening to
enlist.
‘What do you expect me to say to the lad, Issel?’ he asked of the
ruddy, grey-bearded tenant who had come to beg his aid. ‘I can’t tell
him he is wrong if he wants to fight for his country.’
‘Aw, ’tidden that, Squire,’ returned Farmer Issel, shaking his head.
‘I don’t b’lieve as Jan feels a call to go an’ fight no more’n what his
brothers du; but a’s that quare an’ opinionated us can’t make nothin’
of un. Can’t spare un nayther, with harvest comin’ on an’ all, that’s
the trewth.’
It was certainly the truth that labour was scarce and that the
moment was ill chosen for withdrawing a pair of strong arms from
Bratton Farm. Moreover, those were the early days of the war, when
it had not yet become apparent that England must raise and equip a
huge force. Therefore, after some further parley, Mr. Haseldine
promised that he would give young John Issel a word or two of
sound advice, and, with that end in view, he suggested to his
daughter Mildred, a few hours later, that they should make Bratton
Farm the object of their customary afternoon ride.
It was beautiful, hot weather, promising well for the approaching
harvest, and as Mr. Haseldine jogged through the lanes, on either
side of which were broad fields of ripening oats and barley, he
remarked to his companion, with a laugh and a sigh, that some
people didn’t know when they were well off. Patriotism was right
enough, and he would be the last to discourage it; yet before a man
decided to plunge into all the trials and miseries of a campaign he
ought at least to make sure that his duty did not lie nearer home.
And something of that sort was what the Squire presently said to
a slim, dark-eyed young man who, turning round at the sound of the
horses’ hoofs, raised his arms from the gate over which he had been
leaning and touched his hat. Jan Issel listened respectfully, appeared
to be a little troubled, and had no very definite answer to make.
What could be gathered was that his mother had been pressing him
hard, that he did not want to vex her—nor yet nobody else—but that
he reckoned he would have to go all the same. Oh, not until after
harvest, for sure; he had given a promise to that effect and would
keep it.
‘Quite right, my boy,’ said Mr. Haseldine, gathering up his reins.
‘Think it well over; don’t be in a hurry. You may be wanted at the
front by-and-by, and so may your brothers; we don’t any of us know
yet what lies before us. But for the present it seems to me that
you’re more wanted where you are. Now, Mildred, if you’ll wait here
for me, I’ll be with you again in a few minutes. I must just see Issel
and tell him about several things that I forgot to mention this
morning.’
Thus Miss Haseldine was left in the company of a youth of whose
existence she had hitherto been but vaguely aware, but whose
handsome face and great sad eyes made appeal to her. She began
to question him, and, either because her pretty face and kindly blue
eyes made appeal to him or because of some subtle suggestion of
sympathy in her voice, he spoke with a good deal more ease and
openness than he had shown in replying to her father. It was not
only the outbreak of war, he confessed, that had put it into his head
to take up soldiering. Many and many a time before had he thought
of that way of escape from Bratton—because it was from Bratton
that he yearned to escape. No, he hadn’t no trouble, without you
could call it trouble to be uneasy in your mind; only he felt as if he
must get away.
‘I couldn’t explain it to you, miss; I haven’t no power o’ language.
Happen I’m unrasonable, as mother says. Dick and Tom and Bob
they don’t ask no better’n to plough an’ sow an’ reap year in, year
out; but with me ’tis different. Reckon as I’d go mazed if I was to
stop home for always.’
‘I know what is the matter with you,’ said Miss Haseldine, smiling;
‘you’re bored.’
Well, that might be. The word was not included in Jan’s slender
vocabulary, but perhaps he was capable of the sensation. Miss
Haseldine told him that she was and that a vast number of persons
were similarly afflicted. The recognised remedy was work; but, for
obvious reasons, that was not applicable to his case. How about
reading as a diversion? Did he ever open a book?
This chance shot unexpectedly scored. Jan’s big brown eyes
lightened up as he answered that he loved nothing in the world so
much as books to read. Unfortunately, he had exhausted the
literature of Bratton Farm, which consisted of the Bible, sundry
theological works, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ an anthology entitled ‘Pearls
from the Poets,’ and a few dilapidated volumes of the Family Herald.
Miss Haseldine said she could introduce him to a rather wider
circle of writers than that. ‘Come up to the house after dinner this
evening and I’ll lend you all the books you care to carry away.’
Jan was almost as grateful to the young lady as a starving man
would have been for a loaf of bread; yet it was perhaps rather her
looks and her voice than her kind offer that compelled his gratitude.
Hitherto nobody had understood him—which was the less surprising
because he had some difficulty in understanding himself—and he
had observed a general disposition to treat him with the indulgence
accorded to the mentally deficient. But here at last was a beautiful,
beneficent being who not only did not call him a fool but clearly
showed, without actually saying so, that she entered into his feelings
and shared them. He had often seen her before, in church and
elsewhere, but did not remember ever to have heard her speak.
After she and her father had ridden away, he dropped his elbows
upon the gate once more and for some time thought about her
dreamily, with a pleasantly warmed heart, wondering why he had
never before noticed her physical beauty. Then he stretched himself
and strode off to get the cows in for milking.
Mildred Haseldine, if scarcely beautiful, was as pretty as golden
hair, forget-me-not blue eyes, and neat little features could make
her. Beneficent she might fairly be called, inasmuch as she was
always glad to do a good turn to her neighbours, and this farm lad,
with his odd craving for mental nourishment and his rebellion
against the monotony of agricultural life, interested her. So as soon
as she reached home she laid the library shelves under contribution,
selecting ‘Ivanhoe,’ Tennyson’s Poems, Carlyle’s ‘Past and Present’
and Fitchett’s ‘Deeds that Won the Empire,’ as being a sufficiently
comprehensive batch to begin with, and handed the volumes to her
maid Judith, with instructions that they were to be given to young
John Issel, if he should call for them. She observed that Judith
blushed; but the circumstance made no impression upon her,
Judith’s blushes being frequent and for the most part devoid of
cause.
As a matter of fact, Judith Combe had some excuse for exhibiting
self-consciousness at the sound of Jan Issel’s name. Not very much,
it is true; for in her class of life the fact of ‘walking out’ with a young
man on Sunday afternoons is not held to commit either of the
walkers to subsequent matrimony, and certainly Jan did not consider
himself in any way pledged to Judy Combe, whom he had chosen
merely because, like his brothers and everybody else, he had to
have a female companion of some sort. He liked the gentle, demure
lass, was indifferently aware that she was nice-looking (she was in
reality decidedly prettier than Miss Haseldine), and even supposed
that he might marry her some day. But that, of course, would only
be if he should stay at Bratton, instead of going out into the wide
world—a contingency which he never cared to contemplate.
 An access of shyness led him to ask for Judith when he went up to
the great house that evening; but he was just a trifle disappointed
when she joined him, bearing the promised armful of literature, and
when he realised that he was not to see his benefactress. Nothing,
however, forbade him to talk about her, nor did he say much about
anybody or anything else during an interview which took place by
starlight in the stable-yard. Judith, who was greatly attached to her
mistress, was as laudatory as could be wished, if not particularly
informing. Miss Mildred was always doing kind things; so Judith did
not think it strange that she should lend books to Jan Issel if he
wanted them; though it was perhaps rather strange that he should
want them. She timidly intimated as much, but received no answer.
It was, of course, impossible to explain to Judy Combe what the
printed page meant to one who was consumed with curiosity
respecting the world in which we dwell and who had no
opportunities of coming into contact with a verbal interpreter. It
would likewise have been difficult to bring home to her the motives
that such a man might have for adopting the profession of arms; so
that subject also was left untouched. For the rest, Jan was eager to
say good-night, being still more eager to discover what Miss Mildred
thought him capable of appreciating.
Miss Mildred, it may be conjectured, had not given a great deal of
thought to the matter; but she bestowed quite as much pleasure
upon her protégé as if she had. That night and on several successive
nights Jan sat up, devouring the volumes by the light of a single
candle long after all the other inmates of the farm were asleep.
‘Ivanhoe,’ which was pretty plain sailing, delighted him, as did also
Fitchett’s stirring and admirably related yarns. If he could not always
make out what Tennyson was driving at, he loved the rhythm and
melody of his verse, just as he loved the sonorous grandeur of
certain chapters in Isaiah and Ecclesiastes, the meaning of which
was completely hidden from him. In like manner thousands of
people derive genuine enjoyment from listening to a symphony,
although they are ignorant of the structure of such compositions and
cannot really follow them. But, oddly enough, it was with Carlyle
that Jan was best pleased. The bygone abuses and social anomalies
against which ‘Past and Present’ thunders naturally said nothing to
him, nor could he trace much connection between them and the
chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond. It must also be admitted that he
skipped a good many pages. What roused him to enthusiasm was
not the writer’s theme but his mastery of language and the
magnificent, disdainful carelessness with which he displayed it, as
though feeling himself big enough to be independent of all rules. Jan
Issel, it must be supposed, possessed the literary sense—which
indeed, like every other artistic sense, is inborn, not to be acquired.
When he went to Culme House to return the books and beg for
more, he tried, not over-successfully, to express to Miss Mildred
(who received him this time and took him into the library) the
intensity of his admiration for a philosopher who is commonly
considered to be above the heads of the simple.
‘A girt man, miss,’ he said—‘a powerful man!’
‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Mildred, surprised and amused, ‘he’s—
picturesque. Hardly at his best in “Past and Present,” though. I’ll lend
you his “French Revolution,” which is much more interesting.’
Most leisured readers require a considerable length of time to
assimilate that work; Jan, who had practically no leisure between
sunrise and sunset, got through it in a week. He read it, as he read
most works, with only a dim comprehension but with great
contentment. Contentment, in fact, was the blessing bestowed upon
him by Miss Haseldine’s happy inspiration; so that he spoke no more
of joining the Army, while she was rewarded by the respectful thanks
of his parents. From Jan himself she received something more than
thanks and respect. It was, no doubt, natural enough that his
imagination, fired by the novels and plays which she prescribed as
occasional alternatives to historical study, should clothe her with the
attributes of a heroine of romance. His contentment, for that matter,
was perhaps as much the outcome of talks with Miss Mildred as of
communings with authors who by themselves might rather have
tended to increase the latent disquietude which they were supposed
to have allayed. These talks became frequent during the autumn
weeks, occasion for them being willingly supplied by a young lady
who could not help finding Jan Issel unusual and interesting. He
came out, every now and then, with the quaintest, the most original,
the most poetical remarks, and if his hearer sometimes had a little
inward laugh, she was very careful not to let her features betray her;
because his sensitiveness was no less manifest than his timid
devotion. To inspire devotion—especially when it is timid—is seldom
disagreeable to any young lady; so Miss Mildred often overtook Jan
in the lanes or summoned him to the house; and this was really kind
of her, seeing that she, who had so much to fill her thoughts just
then, might well have been excused if she had forgotten all about a
queer, dreamy farm lad. For those were the days in which the long
battle of the Aisne was developing, and although her brother Frank
had thus far escaped death or wounds, bad news of him and others
might come at any moment.
In Jan’s thoughts there was not much room for the war and its
vicissitudes. There would have been no room in them at all for
Judith Combe if she had not enjoyed the proverbial privilege of living
near the rose, which entailed the more dubious one of hearing the
rose extolled without intermission during those Sunday walks which
at an earlier period had been so largely taciturn. But Judith was a
long-suffering little soul, and it was only after much hesitation that
she ventured to ask:
‘Bain’t ’ee gettin’ tu fond of her, Jan?’
Jan reddened all over his face and neck. ‘Tu fond o’ Miss Mildred!
What be dramin’ about then? Do ’ee think a dog can get tu fond o’
the sun? You’m talkin’ proper nonsense, Judy.’
Nevertheless, Judith’s words came to him as a shock and a
revelation, over which he pondered for hours afterwards. At first he
was ashamed of his audacity and felt as if he had been guilty of
some unpardonable outrage; but by degrees he arrived at a different
view of the matter. What if he did love a human goddess? When all
was said, he could not help it. The veriest cur, according to his own
homely metaphor, may bask in the sun, and she could not be
displeased by what would certainly never be revealed to her. It was
his secret, which he was surely free to cherish, without the least
shadow of hope, much as certain sixteenth-century poets cherished
a passion for Queen Elizabeth, or said they did. But the fact of being
without shadow of hope—as of course he was—did not preclude
indulgence in ecstatic visions. His mobile imagination enabled him to
see himself earning literary renown (like the peasant Robert Burns,
perhaps), rising by virtue of the same to a position of admitted
equality with the highest in the land and stripping the laurels from
his brow to lay them at Mildred’s feet. Such things could not come to
pass, and he knew that they could not; yet he liked to picture them
and might plead that his fancies were as harmless as his love.
Harmless both may have been; only both contributed to bring
about a return of his old restlessness. He was now embarrassed in
conversing with Miss Mildred; he could not get rid of a haunting
dread that she might suspect his sentiments (she was perhaps not
so far from suspecting them as he thought), and then how would he
ever dare to look her in the face again? More and more evident was
it to him that he must leave the farm, that he would have to go
some day and that he had better go soon. Added to this, his
brothers were beginning to talk about donning khaki. Without saying
anything to their father, they discussed the question amongst
themselves and agreed that if ‘th’ old war’ was going to last another
year, as the newspapers said it was, they could not decently keep
out of it. It was impossible for all of them to go, that was certain;
but one, or even two, of them might. The youngest they excluded,
not only because ‘mother wouldn’t niver part with ’un,’ but because
he was understood to have been cured of military hankerings. Thus
it became plain that procrastination would only place fresh obstacles
in Jan’s path.
It was on a grey morning in October that he was accosted by a
recruiting sergeant at Exeter, whither he had been sent to dispose of
some steers, and there was no need to impress upon him that
Flanders was the right place for a likely young chap without
encumbrances. He intimated that that was his own view and asked
whether he could have a couple of days ‘to wind up like.’ Three, if he
chose, the pleased sergeant replied; but he said two would be
enough. They might even be excessive, he thought, for although old
Mrs. Issel was a fond mother, she had a ‘tarrible power o’ spache’
when aggrieved; but he could not go off to the wars without taking
leave of Miss Mildred, and he wanted to make sure of a farewell
audience. More with that end in view than because he recognised
any claim that Miss Mildred’s maid might have upon him, he
marched up to Culme House the same evening and briefly informed
Judith that he had taken the King’s shilling.
‘Aw, ma dear soul!’ cried the girl, throwing up her hands in dismay,
‘what iver did ’ee du that vur?’
It was a thing, Jan answered, that had to be done—a thing that
every young man in England would be doing before long, by what he
had heard tell. He further attempted to explain why for him in
particular it was essential to break fresh ground; but, not making
much of a success of this and noticing, moreover, that Judith was
not listening, he desisted.
Judith was crying softly, and that gave him a pain at his heart. His
mother also, instead of scolding him, as he had expected her to do,
had wept, throwing her apron over her head and rocking herself to
and fro, while his father, after one short, angry outburst, had
abruptly fallen silent and had walked out of the house with bowed
shoulders. It is cruel to have to hurt people like that; but—what can
one do? He did his best to comfort poor little Judy, who was afraid
‘they pesky Germans’ would kill him—which indeed did not seem
unlikely—but who tried to recover a cheerful countenance and
assured him that she understood everything. He could not, of
course, believe that she did, and would have been quite sorry if she
had; still he was grateful to her for being so brave about it and for
readily promising to deliver a message to Miss Mildred.
He had thought—perhaps half hoped—that Miss Mildred would
reproach him a little for having so suddenly taken a step from which
he had been dissuaded by her; but when she met him on the
morrow she did nothing of the kind. Circumstances alter cases; the
country now needed all who were fit to serve; she assumed that Jan
had been actuated by patriotic motives and had only praise and
congratulations for him.
‘How proud we shall all be of you if you come back with a V.C. or
an officer’s commission!’ she exclaimed. ‘Nothing is impossible in war
time, you know.’
Jan smiled and shook his head, but, he often thought of her words
afterwards and made them the nucleus of innumerable day-dreams.
What he longed for at the time was some hint of regret on her part,
some intimation that she would miss him a little. However, she did
not seem to think that there was anything to regret, and it was
absurd to suppose that his departure could make any difference to
her. Why should it? One thing, at any rate, she said which was as
delightful as it was unforeseen.
‘You must let me hear from you, John. Write often and at great
length, please, and tell me exactly how everything strikes you.
Answer? Oh, of course I will, and I’ll send you socks and mufflers
and things, not to mention books.’ She added, after a moment, ‘I
was thinking of giving you something now, only I don’t know what
you would like to have.’
Jan knew very well what he would like to have: whether he might
dare to ask for it was another question. However, he was going away
and it was probable enough that he would see her no more; so he
screwed up courage to confess that the most welcome gift she could
bestow upon him would be something that had belonged to herself
—maybe the little silver pencil-case which he had so often seen her
use.
She presented it to him with a bright smile and with no
appearance of thinking him presumptuous. Then she frankly shook
him by the hand, wished him the best of luck and left him beside the
gate leading up to Bratton Farm, where their colloquy had been
held. At the bend of the road she turned to wave him a last farewell
and so disappeared into the misty twilight.
Jan raised the precious pencil-case to his lips, pushed it into his
waistcoat pocket and was happy. He even told himself in so many
words that he was happy; which is an experience of such rarity that
those to whom it has once come never quite forget it. Jan thought
that if he were to be shot the next week, he would still have had as
good a moment as three score years and ten of life could bring him.
But of course there was no question of his being shot the next
week or for a great many weeks to come. The training process
through which he and other recruits had to go might have been
tedious if he had not accepted it as an indispensable means towards
an end, and if he had not, rather unexpectedly, found a certain
pleasure in it. The monotony of drill was at least a novel species of
monotony; his comrades were for the most part cheery,
companionable fellows, many of whom differed sufficiently from the
types hitherto known to him to stimulate his ever alert curiosity; the
sergeant who instructed them in the use of the bayonet had semi-
jocular anecdotes of his own experiences to relate which exhibited
the grim visage of war as wreathed in smiles. Even the very real
hardships and discomforts of camp life under persistent, pitiless rain
were made light of by Jan, who felt himself developing into an
efficient soldier day by day and who indeed was often singled out for
commendation. He wrote regularly, if briefly, to the old people at the
farm, regretting that there was so little to say; yet he found plenty
to say to Miss Mildred. Had she not bidden him to write ‘at great
length’? Those carefully composed epistles of his, which were
couched in a queer mixture of dialect and high-flown language and
in which words (culled from the works of some more competent
manipulator of them) were occasionally used in a sense
unrecognised by the dictionary, were not without pathos, as showing
forth a poor mortal brimming over with ideas and impressions and
struggling hard to be articulate. Let us hope that their recipient so
interpreted them. Her replies, at any rate, laconic though they were,
gave the utmost satisfaction to a worshipper who was duly sensible
of her graciousness in deigning to reply at all.
What was not very satisfactory to Jan was that there was no talk
of the battalion to which he belonged proceeding to the front. Some
of the men professed to doubt whether they would ever leave the
country; others had heard that they were to get marching orders in
the coming summer; all were agreed that they would have to make
the best of their sodden camp for several months yet. But no such
trial of patience awaited Jan, who was despatched to France with a
draft at very short notice early in February and who was not long left
in his first halting-place some distance behind the fighting line. His
impressions of life in the flooded trenches and of what it felt like to
be under fire were given with great simplicity, though not without
here and there a graphic touch, in the letters which he afterwards
found time to write to Mildred. This war, he said, was not like any
other war that he had ever heard or read of. It had had its glories,
but it did not seem as if it was going to have any more. Your
enemies were close at hand, but you couldn’t get at them, nor yet
they couldn’t get at you. So, taken as a whole, it was not exciting.
The worst part of it was the awful noise of the guns and the bursting
shells, which he found more trying than the wet and cold and the
ugly sights about which he was sure that his correspondent would
not wish him to say much. The desolation of the ravaged country,
the wrecked villages and farmhouses, the homeless peasants, the
poor wandering dogs and cats—he dwelt on these and said that he
seemed to be witnessing all the horrors and miseries of war without
any of its grand spectacular effects. (‘Where in the world did he get
“spectacular effects” from?’ Mildred smilingly wondered when she
read this sentence.)
‘And yet,’ he went on, ‘it’s a singular thing that I never felt at
peace like I do now. I don’t know as I can make you understand,
Miss—I’m so bad at setting my meaning down—but it keeps coming
over me that all’s as it should be. Particular at nights, when the
clouds blow away and I can look up at the stars. This planet we live
on isn’t but a very small speck, and we, scrambling about in our
trenches, as it might be so many emmets, what matter how soon
we’re gone and forgotten? Years and centuries pass and everything
is forgotten. So why worry? And then the chaps alongside of me. We
don’t talk except about common things, only I know they’re feeling
the same as I do, which draws us together like. Maybe it’s because
of death being always round the corner. Do you mind that poem of
Kipling’s, called The Return, in one of the books you lent me? It’s
wonderful true what he says⸺

“So much more near than I ’ad known,

So much more great than I ’ad guessed—
And me, like all the rest, alone—
But reachin’ out to all the rest!”

That’s just the way it strikes me, and somehow it seems to make for
peace, though I couldn’t say why.’
If Jan had probed and analysed the serenity of spirit which he
strove to define, he might have discovered that it arose simply from
a sense that he was doing his duty; but he never quite arrived at
that conclusion. What he did conclude—and found humorously
puzzling—was that the place into which he had dropped was the
right place for him, that he must always have been meant to be a
soldier, not a poet nor an imaginative writer nor any of the fine
things that he would have liked to be, but just a private in an
infantry regiment. Well, even so, ambition need not be banished,
and his chance of earning what Miss Mildred had said would make
her proud might come any day.
He did, as the weeks slipped on, obtain sundry occasions of
proving himself a capable fighter; but the affairs in which he was
concerned were not important enough for public record. Save for
these sporadic attacks upon the enemy, which for the most part
resulted only in the loss of a considerable number of lives, there was
no break in the regular routine of so many days in the trenches,
followed by a period of rest in billets, whence he despatched his
letters, writing them invariably with the pencil which was his most
treasured possession.
It was on a cold, frosty night in spring that two staff officers,
passing along his trench, halted beside him, and one of them called
out:
‘Hullo!—hanged if it isn’t John Issel! Well, Jan, ’tis a wisht poor job
sodgerin’, sure enough. Bain’t it now?’
Jan, standing at the salute, had a broad smile for the handsome
young fellow who accosted him in the dialect of which he had lately
been endeavouring to rid himself. He did not know much of Captain
Haseldine, but he was proud and pleased to be recognised, and he
made reply that he had nothing to complain about. Campaigning, he
added, was teaching him a lot of new things.
‘Oh, it’s doing that for most of us,’ Frank Haseldine observed,
laughing. ‘Even for some of our Generals.’
He went on talking for a few minutes about home affairs,
remarking in an explanatory parenthesis to his companion, ‘Issel
comes from our parish.’ Then he said to Jan ‘You’ll see Captain
Bernard again one of these days, I hope, if we all pull through.
Captain Bernard is engaged to be married to my sister Mildred.’
It was a little like being hit by a bullet—a sudden thump which
made your heart stand still, yet left you erect and with an instant
feeling that your first duty was to show no sign of distress. Jan
showed none, and presently the two officers moved on, leaving him
free to think what he would beneath his friends the blinking stars.
These gave him such comfort as they had it in their power to
bestow. They said it did not matter, because nothing really matters,
and to that view in the abstract he could assent. But to affirm that
so long as his little life might last it would not matter that somebody
—he had scarcely looked at the man—was going to marry his
goddess was quite vain. If the stars had asked whether he had ever
imagined that he himself could marry Miss Mildred, he would
naturally have answered ‘Of course not’; yet, however ridiculous and
insane it might be, the truth was that he could not bear the idea of
her belonging to anybody else. So what it came to, and what it had
doubtless been bound to come to from the outset, was that he could
not bear conditions which were altogether right, reasonable and
inevitable. Jan Issel was not the first to find himself in that forlorn
plight. In extreme cases it has been known to lead to suicide; in the
vast majority it entails submission, more or less facile, to the decrees
of destiny; for Jan it translated itself into a very fervent and genuine
hope that the Germans might wipe him out. He saw now—it may
have been illogical, but that made no difference to the fact—that his
visions had been utterly childish, that he, an uneducated yokel, had
no future and could have none, that it would be far better for him to
end out there in Flanders than to be confronted some day with the
dire prospect of a return to tilling the Devon fields and herding the
Devon cattle.
This mood, it is true, did not endure; for he became hazily
conscious that there was something contemptible in it and that a
young, strong man has no business to wish himself extinguished.
Nevertheless, he had more difficulty than usual in composing his
next letter to Mildred, in which he made no allusion to her
engagement, thinking that it would be bad manners to do so, since
she had not mentioned it to him. At the end he remarked:
‘We lose men most days, and maybe my turn will come. It is good
to be alive, because the world is beautiful and wonderful and
because of some of the people in it; but I don’t think there can be
many so happy that they should mind dying, for I can’t believe but
what death means rest.’
With such persuasions he was well prepared to face what was in
store for him when at length his battalion was told off to join in an
engagement on a large scale. They knew very little about it beyond
the fact that the British forces, after a rather prolonged spell of
inaction, were about to resume the offensive and that their own
special job would be to take a position facing them which was said
to have been mined. That it had been mined with success was
evidenced towards evening by a series of terrific explosions which
seemed simply to annihilate the enemy’s defensive works; but the
infantry were held back until a deluge of shell had been poured into
the ruins. Then Jan and his comrades got the order to go, and away
they went through the twilight smoke and dust, meeting with no
opposition from the apparently broken foe. The distance that
separated them from the first line of hostile trenches was traversed
in no time, and that first line, or what remained of it, was occupied
with ease; but in the communication trenches the Germans made a
stand which resulted in hand-to-hand fighting of a really desperate
nature. Of what was taking place amidst that tumult and welter and
in the falling dusk Jan had only a confused notion; he supposed he
must be performing his share of the task all right, because
somebody sang out, ‘Well done, Issel!’ He was aware of being
wounded, for the warm blood was trickling down his leg and soaking
through his putties; but he felt neither pain nor weakness. Finally
there came an abrupt lull. The bearded, grey-coated Germans had
vanished, and he realised that the next line of trenches had been
carried. He realised also, for the second time in his life, that he was
quite happy. When he fell in, forming up with the remnants of his
shattered battalion, he heard himself laughing aloud in sheer glee—
he was as happy as that!
Was it a victory? It seemed so; yet a sudden and violent fusillade,
opening upon them from their left, caused him to glance
interrogatively at his neighbour. The man answered his unspoken
query with a muttered ‘Enfiladed, by God!’ and immediately
afterwards fell forward, groaning and swearing. But no groan came
from Jan Issel, whom a bullet struck full in the heart; so that he
dropped and never stirred again—only one amongst thousands who
were delivered that night from the complications and bewilderments
of a sick world.
To fall fighting for England in the full tide of life, to fall, shot
through the heart, without a pang and in a moment of supreme
exaltation is to finish gloriously, enviably. We all know this and we all
say it, though some of us perhaps may feel that our own hearts are
none the less broken for that. However, it was not to be expected
that Mildred Haseldine should be broken-hearted when the news
came to Culme House. She was much distressed; still she could not
but recognise that there were compensating circumstances, and she
went over at once to Bratton Farm to impart some of these to the
poor lad’s parents. If her condolences were not received in quite as
grateful a spirit as they might have been, she could and did make
allowances for the grief-stricken farmer and his wife. Old Issel
scarcely listened to what she was saying, and cut her short by
calling out in a loud, harsh voice:
‘What did ’a want to go and get hisself killed vur? Darn they foul
Germans! Yes, Miss, I don’t doubt but you’m sorry, but it bain’t your
sorrow as’ll bring my boy back.’
With that he stumped out of the kitchen, leaving Mildred to do
what she could with Mrs. Issel, which was an even more difficult
matter. For Mrs. Issel, dry-eyed and despairing, had some rather
unkind and irrational things to say. When, for instance, she was
gently told that her visitor had strong personal reasons for
sympathising with all to whom the war was bringing anxiety or loss,
it was not very generous to rejoin that the young lady need not fret.
‘They staff officers don’t niver take no hurt, so I’ve heerd tell.’ But
what was really too unjust to be endured without protest was the
assertion that it was Miss Mildred more than anybody who had
driven Jan away to distant battlefields by ‘putting a passel of foolish
notions into his head.’ In self-defence, Mildred had to remind the old
woman that, so far from having encouraged Jan to enlist, she had
tried, by providing him with other interests, to deter him from so
doing. As for his actual enlistment, she had only heard of it after it
had become an accomplished fact. This being undeniably true, Mrs.
Issel made no reply and remained silent while it was represented to
her that we can never be sure whether an early death is a
misfortune or not. No living being can hope to escape sorrow and
suffering, and Mildred, for her part, did not think that poor Jan’s
temperament was of the kind that tends towards happiness.
 Probably that also was true. It would hardly have made Jan happy
to discover—as he might have done—that he had mistaken an
entirely commonplace young woman for a divinity nor to realise—as
he must have done—that he was too heavily weighted in life’s
handicap to emerge from the ruck where he was so ill at ease.
Judith Combe, while brushing her mistress’s hair that evening, said
of him with unexpected sagacity that maybe Providence had ‘served
him kind’ by taking him out of this world, seeing that he would
always have been set upon what was beyond his reach.
Judith herself was so set upon obtaining something for which she
was more than a little afraid to ask that she decided to take the risk
of making her desire known. Could Miss Mildred spare one of Jan’s
letters? He had not written to her at all, and she would like very
much, if she might, to have a page or two from his own hand.
‘Because we was in a manner friends, you see, Miss.’
Mildred looked inquiringly at her sedate handmaid and smiled. ‘I
am not sure that it would be quite fair to the poor boy,’ she
answered. ‘He says some things which many people would think
rather comic, and perhaps I oughtn’t.... However, you wouldn’t
understand. Oh, well, yes, Judith—take them all, if you care to have
them. I think I can find the whole collection.’
So the whole collection became the property of Judith, who spent
many an hour over it and stained some of its leaves with her tears.
It is by no means certain that she did not understand Jan’s flights of
fancy and diction. It may even have constituted one of the
unnumbered ironies of human experience that Jan himself should
have been more nearly understood by the illiterate Judith than by
Mildred Haseldine or by anybody else.
W. E. Norris.
 THE NEW ‘UBIQUE’: A BATTLE.
by jeffery e. jeffery.

By the ears and the eyes and the brain,

By the limbs and the hands and the wings,
We are slaves to our masters the guns,
But their slaves are the masters of kings!

Gilbert Frankau.

Somewhere about the middle of June, we knew definitely that we

were ‘for it,’ as the soldier says; we knew that our division was one
of those chosen for the great concentration which was to culminate
in the ‘great push’—and we were proud of the distinction. A three
days’ march brought us to a certain training area, where we camped
for a week and worked some seventeen hours a day—counting, that
is, from réveillé at 4 a.m. until the last bit of harness was hung up
clean and ready for the morrow at 9 p.m.
During this period two incidents of note occurred. One was that
the Child suddenly developed pleurisy, and was removed to hospital
—a serious loss at any time, but especially so at this particular
moment. The other was that a squadron of hostile aircraft flew over
our manœuvre ground and actually dropped a bomb within 150
yards of the tail of our column. Which, seeing that we were some
twenty miles from the nearest part of the line and at the moment
only playing at soldiers, was most disconcerting.
From the time when we left this training area until, about three
weeks later, we were withdrawn to rest in a quiet part of the line, I
kept a rough diary of our particular share in the greatest battle ever
fought by the British Army. The following are some extracts from it,
in no way embellished, but only enlarged so as to make them
intelligible.

June 27.—Nine-hour night march southwards, arriving in

comfortable billets at 3.30 a.m. Aeroplanes (or at any rate,
hostile ones) are the curse of this war: if it was not for fear of
them we could move by daylight in a reasonable manner. The
old saddler, dozing on a wagon, fell off and was run over:
nothing broken, but he will be lost to us. A great pity, as he’s
a charming character and a first-class workman.
June 28 and 29.—Rested, the continuation of the march
having been postponed.
June 30.—Orders to move on to-night. Was sent off with a
small party on a road and river reconnaissance: this
presumably with a view to going forward ‘when the advance
begins.’ By the time we got back to where the brigade was to
billet, had ridden about forty miles. Job only half finished.
Battery marched in at midnight.
July 1.—Started at 5.30 a.m. with same party to finish
reconnaissance. Reached a point about four miles behind the
line, at 7.15 a.m.: a tremendous bombardment in progress.
Left our horses, and walked on two miles to a river. Here
learnt that the attack had been launched at 7.30 and was
going well. Walked north up the river-bank, keeping well
under the shelter of the steep ridge on the east side, and only
emerging to examine each bridge as we came to it.
Thousands upon thousands of shells of every size, from
‘Grannies’ to 18-prs., passing over our heads unceasingly:
expected the enemy to retaliate. But not a round came:
probably the Boche was too busily engaged elsewhere. Met
streams of wounded coming down; some with captured
helmets, nearly all with grins.
Finished the river reconnaissance about 10.30 and walked
back by a roundabout (but less unpleasant!) way, and
reached our horses about midday. Rode back to the battery
and spent the afternoon writing out full report. Orders to
move at 11.30 p.m. Long night march to new billets, arriving
4.15 a.m.
July 2.—Rested. In the course of the day the Child
returned, having in some amazing way persuaded the
hospital authorities that pleurisy and a temperature of 104°
are the best possible things to have on the eve of a great
offensive. Swears he’s all right now, and objects to being
ordered to take it easy—while he can. Heavy bombardment
all day, but we are eight miles back here. Official
communiqués record further successes.
July 3.—Moved at 9.30 p.m., and arrived (5.30 a.m.) soaking
wet at the worst bivouac it has ever been our unhappy lot to
occupy.
July 4.—Saw about 150 German prisoners being brought
back. In the afternoon, after a violent thunderstorm, went to
look at the position which we are to take over. Found that it
was immensely strong. Originally it was only 1200 yards from
the enemy front line, but now, since the advance, is about
3000. Steady rain all the time. Got back to find the camp
converted into a veritable bog, and men of all the batteries
making shelters for themselves by cutting down trees and
looting straw. There will be a row over this, but—well, it is too
much to expect men to submit to such unnecessary
discomfort.
July 5.—Took the Child and two telephonists and went up
to new position. Bombardment proceeding incessantly. Was
amazed at the amount of material already brought up, at the
gangs already working on the shell-wrecked roads, and at the
crowd of spectators who lined a convenient ridge to ‘watch
the show.’
 Went with the Child and the battery commander from
whom we were taking over to get a look at the country and
visit the O.P. Passed through Fricourt—not long captured.
Never could a bombardment have done its work of
destruction more thoroughly than here. Not figuratively, but
literally; no one brick stood upon another, scarcely one brick
was whole. Walked on up the sunken road that leads north
from Fricourt past the Dingle and Shelter Wood. For days this
road had been a death-trap. It was strewn with corpses, with
stretchers on which lay wounded men awaiting removal, with
broken bits of equipment, English and German—and it stank.
We arrived at the headquarters of a battalion and asked if we
could see the colonel.
‘No,’ they told us, ‘you can’t at present. He’s just been
buried in his dug-out by a shell, and it will be some time
before we get him clear; he’s all right, but a bit shaken.’
So we went on up a battered trench to the O.P. In it a
subaltern and two signallers, all three caked in mud. At the
moment the wire to the battery was intact. Two men had
been killed and one wounded whilst mending it. From here
we could see the famous Quadrangle Trench, which at that
time was holding up the advance. Many batteries were
shooting at it. Having got our bearings, so to speak, we did
not linger in this most unhealthy spot, but returned to the
battery position.
On the way home met our own colonel bearing the news
that the brigade would probably go into action in quite a
different area. This news confirmed at H.Q. at 5 p.m. Turned
back and reconnoitred the new position, which was farther
south, nearer Fricourt; rather cramped and quite unprepared
for occupation. Cadged dinner from an old friend whom we
met at D.H.Q. Met the battery on the road about 10 p.m. and
led it to new position. Work of getting guns in, ammunition
and stores dumped, and teams away completed by 3 a.m.
Awaited dawn.
July 6.—As soon as it was light went up the hill on the right
front of the battery to meet the colonel, choose an O.P. and
‘learn’ the country. The scene of wreckage upon this hill now
is past all belief, and is, I should imagine, a perfect example
of the havoc wrought by a modern ‘intense’ bombardment.
The whole face of the earth is completely altered. On the
German side of No Man’s Land, not one square yard of the
original surface of the ground remains unbroken. Line upon
line of trenches and tunnels and saps have been so smashed
that they are barely recognisable as such: there are mine
craters seventy to a hundred yards across, and there are dug-
outs (some of these still intact) which go down fifty feet and
more into the chalk. On every side is débris—rails, timber, kit,
blankets, broken rifles, bread, steel helmets, pumps,
respirators, corpses. And nowhere can one get away from the
sickening smell—the smell of putrescent human flesh....
The morning mist cleared at last and we were able to see
the landscape. From the O.P. we chose, the view, for our
purposes, was ideal. Below us lay the ruins that once were
Fricourt, to the right Fricourt Wood, farther off Mametz Wood
and village, and on the skyline Contalmaison. Returned, very
dishevelled, to breakfast at 8 a.m. During the morning ran out
a wire, got ‘through’ to the battery, but did not dare to start
shooting until further information as to the situation of the
infantry was available. Eventually gathered that we only hold
the southern edge of Mametz Wood, and that the Quadrangle
Trench which lies to the left (west) of it is not yet in our
possession. Spent the afternoon registering the guns, and
then began shelling Mametz Wood. Was relieved by the Child
at tea-time. Came down to the battery and washed. Looked
forward to decent night’s rest but was disappointed, viz.:
 July 7.—Woken by Angelo at 1 a.m., who brought orders for
a ‘strafe,’ which was to start at 2. Battery fired at a rapid rate
from that hour till 2.30. Went back to bed. Woken by the
Infant, who had relieved Angelo, at 6. Big bombardment to
start at 7.20. Went to telephone dug-out at 7.15, unwashed
and half-dressed, and remained there all day; meals brought
in to me. The battery fired practically continuously for
fourteen hours at rates varying from one to twenty-four
rounds a minute. Targets various—mostly ‘barraging’ Mametz
Wood and ground immediately to the west of it. Worked the
detachments as far as possible in reliefs, turning on spare
signallers, cooks, and servants to carry ammunition as it
arrived.
The Child, who was at the O.P., sent down what
information he could, but reported that it was hardly possible
to see anything owing to the smoke. Passed on everything to
Brigade H.Q. (communications working well), and received
their instructions as to changes of target, rate of fire, etc. By
dusk we were all very tired, and several of the men stone
deaf. There were several heavy showers during the day, so
that the position became a quagmire into which the guns
sank almost to their axles and became increasingly difficult to
serve. Empty cartridge cases piled several feet high round
each platform: mud awful. No official communiqué as to
result of the day’s operation. Got eight hours’ sleep.
July 8.—Shooting, off and on, all day—mostly registration
of new points. In the intervals when not firing the
detachments kept hard at work improving and strengthening
the position. Hostile artillery much more active, but nothing
really close to us. Fired 150 rounds during the night into
Mametz Wood: northern portion not yet in our hands.
July 9.—A good deal of barrage work all day, but as it was
mostly at a slow rate the men managed to get some rest—
goodness knows, they both need and deserve it.
 July 10.—Went out with the colonel to reconnoitre an
advanced position. Got caught in a barrage, and had to
crouch in a (fortunately) deep trench for half an hour. Sitting
there began to wonder if this was the prelude to a counter-
attack; just then, looking out to the left, that is towards the
south-west corner of Mametz Wood, saw a lot of men running
hard. Suddenly spotted the familiar grey uniform and spiked
helmets of the enemy.
‘God!’ I cried, ‘it is a counter-attack. Those are Huns!’
Expected every moment to have one peering in over the top
of the trench: did not dare to run for it, owing to the barrage,
which was still heavy. T⸺, who was with me, remained
calm and put up his glasses.
‘All right,’ he said; ‘they’re prisoners. Look at the escort.’
And so they were, running for their lives through their own
shrapnel—and the escort keeping well up with them!
The storm being over (no ‘hate’ lasts for ever), returned as
quickly as we could, and reported that the position was
possible but by no means tempting! A lot of night firing.
July 11.—Set out with the Child, two sergeants, and my
trusty ‘look-out man’ to look for a more favourable spot. After
a good deal of walking about found one, a fairly snug place
(though pitted with shell holes).
Intended to reconnoitre for an O.P. in the front edge of
Mametz Wood, but met a colonel just back from those parts
who assured us that the enemy front line ran there.
Reluctantly (!) we abandoned the enterprise and returned. At
6 p.m. the Child started off with a digging party to prepare the
new position. Move of the battery ordered for 9.30, then
postponed till 10.30. Road crowded with infantry and
transport; progress slow. To be mounted and at the head of a
column of twelve six-horse teams is a very different thing
from being alone and ready to slip behind a wall or into a
trench if occasion calls for it. Luck was on our side, however,
and we got through before any shells came.
Occupied the position quickly, emptied the ammunition
wagons, and got the horses clear without casualties. The
Child reported that a few four-twos had come pretty close
while he and his party were digging and had stopped their
work for a while: nevertheless, quite a lot already done. Time
now 12.30. Turned on every available man and continued
digging till dawn. Men very beat, but not a word of grousing.
July 12.—At dawn went up to find a new O.P.: took the
Child and two signallers, the latter laying a wire as they went.
Found excellent place with good general view in an old
German redoubt. Trenches, however, crammed with sleeping
infantry, over whom one had to step, and under whom the
signallers had to pass their line! Thick mist till 8 a.m., when
light became good enough to start on our task, which was to
cut through the wire at a certain spot in the German main
second line north of Mametz Wood. Observation difficult, as
we were rather far back and the whole line was being heavily
bombarded by our ‘heavies.’ About 10.30 what was
apparently an excursion party of generals and staff officers
arrived to see the fun, crowded us out of our bay in the
trench and lined up, with their heads and red hat-bands
exposed. Lay down in a corner and tried to sleep, but got
trodden on so abandoned the idea. Shoon (another of my
youthful subalterns) came up to relieve us at 2.30, so the
Child and I returned to the battery and got about three hours’
sleep. The detachments with amazing industry and endurance
again hard at work digging. A good deal of hostile fire all
round us, especially close to the nullah, but nothing within
200 yards of the guns.
About 5.30 p.m. Shoon rang up from the O.P. to say that he
and a signaller had been wounded. Angelo went up to take
his place. Poor old Shoon, when he arrived down, was pretty
shaken. Evidently the crowd of spectators previously
remarked upon had attracted the attention of some cross
Boche gunner. A five-nine dropped just beside the O.P. and
knocked both signallers and Shoon, who was observing his
wire-cutting at the moment, head over heels back into the
trench below. While they were picking themselves up out of
the débris a salvo landed on the parados immediately behind
them. One signaller was untouched (and rescued his precious
telephone), the other was badly cut about the head and leg
and departed on a stretcher—a good man too. Shoon got a
scratch on his forehead and some splinters into his left arm.
Swore he was all right, but since he didn’t look it was ordered
to bed.
Ammunition replenished in the evening in a tearing hurry. It
is not pleasant to have teams standing about in a place like
this. Heard that on the return journey to the wagon line last
night a bombardier, four drivers, and five horses had been
wounded—all slightly, thank Heaven!
Shot all night at the wood (Bazentin-le-petit), and at the
front line.
July 13.—Continued wire-cutting and searching the wood
all day. Scores of batteries doing the same thing, and noise
infernal. The Child went off to find out if he could see the
wire from the front edge of Mametz Wood (which now really
is in our possession). Failing to see it from there, he
wandered on up an old communication trench known as
Middle Alley, which led direct from our own to the German
front line. Eventually he found a place from which he could
see through a gap in the hedge. The wire was cut all right—
and, incidentally, he might have come face to face with a
hostile bombing party at any moment! But what seemed to
interest him much more was the behaviour of the orderly who
had accompanied him. This N.C.O., who is the battery ‘look-
out man,’ specially trained to observe anything and