Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3819/The Pacificist
The Pacificist was very worried about it all. In the first place it worried him (quite honestly) that his country should ever go to war at all. In the second place it vexed him profoundly that the war should be against an enemy whose pure-souled benevolence he himself had proclaimed and written about for years. Most of all, perhaps, was he secretly irritated that these untoward events should coincide with the beginning of his own annual holiday at Shrimpborough.
A few mornings after war was declared, the conductor of the Shrimpborough orchestra (a genius of cosmopolitan extraction) rose nobly to the occasion. From his demeanour and a certain flurry amongst the musicians, the Pacificist, seated prominently in the two-penny chairs, had about three minutes' warning of what was coming, so that when the conductor swung round with uplifted baton, and the audience, thrilled but a little self-conscious, climbed to its collective feet as the band crashed into the opening bars of the Marseillaise, the Pacificist has already decided upon his conduct. He sat still, even for a few moments he feigned to be absorbed in his favourite newspaper, but almost immediately gave this up as unconvincing and remained staring straight before him.
It was perhaps not a very impressive protest. It was obviously, under the special circumstances of the case (which need not detain us), an entirely foolish and mistaken one. But he made it. He along in that audience of several hundreds did not rise. A little to his secret disappointment the hundreds made no apparent counter-demonstration. An enthusiastic humming rose from them, mingled with a few easy French words happily introduced when occasion seemed to serve. They were far too preoccupied to trouble about the Pacificist. He had been prepared for every kind of martyrdom, for abuse, hustling, even for blows. All he got was a few looks of embarrassed concern from his immediate neighbours.
To his excited imagination the tune seemed to go on and on for hours. As a matter of fact the genius of cosmopolitan extraction (who had not been extracted quite far enough to be sure of British tastes) gave the audience four verses where one would have been better. And all this time the anger of the Pacificist grew. His cheeks burned, and the excited pounding of his heart was like to stifle him. He knew himself one, alone, against hundreds; impressing them, no doubt (despite their pretence of indifference), with the courage of a right cause. To face odds like that! It was intoxicating.
At last he could bear it no longer. Just as the band ceased and the rest of the audience subsided again to their morning papers, the Pacificist rose. He walked a little unsteadily. The light of battle flashed from his eyes, meeting and beating down what he took, erroneously, to be the glare of a hostile mob. (As a matter of fact no one noticed him any more). Stumbling, white-faced, with set lips and the face of a visionary, he gained the turnstile. This, this, was victory! One against so many! He had proved himself. He had conquered!
The battle-spirit—for, despite his honest conviction, his forebears had been soldiers and sea-dogs—surged up within him. How splendid it was, this fighting down opposition! What was life, after all, but a fight? He had never realized that before. But now he knew. The flame that burnt in his blood demanded other foes, other worlds to conquer. It had become an urgent need with him to continue fighting; almost anyone would do.
Immediately opposite to the turnstile was the open door of a large building; flags surmounted it, and at each side was a large proclamation in red and white. With shoulders squared, flashing eye, and the demeanour of Napoleon at the head of the Old Guard, the Pacificist entered the recruiting office. "I have come," he said fiercely, "to enlist!"