War's Dark Frame/The Strange England

CHAPTER II

THE STRANGE ENGLAND

DURING several hours we suffered the examination before the alien officers. With a progressive severity the European ports have made the entrance of neutrals difficult. One by one we faced the little group at a table in the dining-room while the doors of exit were carefully guarded. Some of us were questioned for only a moment or two. Others were grilled uncomfortably while the next on the list waxed impatient. What were you going to do? Where had you come from? What parts of the kingdom did you wish to visit? What was your ultimate destination? Your past was ransacked.

As you stood by the little table, facing the unsmiling men, you felt yourself suspected. You questioned how a person, trying to enter with criminal intent, could stare back without an escape of fear, could answer the searching questions without a revealing tremor. There are spies beyond doubt who survive such ordeals jauntily. It became obvious to us, however, that very few of them these days have an opportunity of attempting it. For a German spy to slip from New York through such a net would approach the miraculous. Men and women, released after particularly extended examinations, felt themselves aggrieved.

"Do I look like a spy?" one woman demanded hysterically, as she gathered her luggage. "What do those people think nerves are? If I had been a spy I'd have screamed. I'd have asked them to arrest and shoot me, just to get it over with."

The search of baggage was scarcely less minute. You were made to feel again the possibility of bombs, or deadly weapons, or secret documents.

It was, therefore, although we had docked at noon, very nearly dark before we were collected on the special train. And in the carriages, with the suspense of the trip through the submarine zone, with the irritation of the examinations done with, we lay back, anticipating a momentary peace. Instead reminders of war crowded more thickly upon us. The guards were either very young or very old. Prominently exposed in each compartment was a sign commanding us to draw the blinds on request as a measure of safety. While we were in the dining-car a guard came through and gave that order. The midland countryside, flat and placid in the fading light, was shut out. We turned to our meal with a realisation of how different this trip was from any we had ever taken. We had a sensation of stealth, a personal share in the deception of Zeppelins. The rumbling of the train seemed discreet. When we glanced daringly beyond the edge of a blind we saw clouds banked against a pallid sky. A furnace glared redly. The landscape was sullen, a little frightening. The world was different and wrong.

The women looked as if for reassurance to the mere boys who served us. They had an appearance of going on tip-toe, of discouraging conversation. One of them answered a question.

"We're the only kind they can use. The men are doing their bit, sir."

Yet the arrival of the train at Euston conveyed little beyond the impression of quieter days. The shed was suficiently lighted, and one experienced, indeed, the remembered scramble to identify luggage at the vans, the pursuit of porters, the snaring of taxi-cabs.

Driving into the street, the alteration sprang upon us. It makes no difference how much you may have read or heard of darkened London, the reality reaches you with a sense of shock, not wholly unpleasant. It stirs your memory, and you can't guess why at first, because you have never seen anything like it. Then you understand as you rattle through the obscurity, as you catch the trivial illumination from shrouded lamps, as you stare at the glow from shop windows, discreet, a little mysterious, more provocative than the viv- idest electrical displays. It recalls what you have imagined of Elizabethan London. And the city does have an air of romance. It is very lovely, too, because everything ugly is crushed beneath the shadows, and everything beautiful acquires a meaning new and sentimental.

Under such conditions the city offers exciting contrasts. It is magic to step from the medieval romance of the streets into the glittering present of hotels, restaurants, or theatres. Within doors the only material alteration is the carefully drawn blinds. As many lights burn. As far as you can judge as many people crowd the world of pleasure. Yet there is as great a change inside, only it isn't physical. The ever-present officer and soldier point it for you. It takes some time to grow accustomed to these splendid men in uniform. You stare at them, observe their unstudied gaiety, and are aware of a vast depression. Some are back from the front on a few days' leave. Others, by the blue uniform of the hospital, or by their pallid faces, or by their missing limbs, advertise their convalescence with a pitiful pride. The greater number, however, are men still in training, on leave from the various cantonments. One smiles at the talk of a scarcity of men without compulsion. And these fellows are the best of the nation—young, sturdy, handsome, awaiting their baptism of fire with a quiet confidence. They know, too, what that means. This war has left them no illusions. High explosives, gas, liquid fire, are common to their talk over tea table or dinner. They face such things with a stolid determination that surprises. It is the most thrill. ing phase of London, this procession of youths that have assumed the khaki, symbol of the supreme sacrifice. They wear it too easily, yet in reality there is something ecstatic about their young faces—something quite beyond definition.

As the days passed one wondered that London should be so crowded. At the popular restaurants it was always necessary to engage a table in advance. I heard acquaintances lament that they had had to lunch at cheap tea houses after craving admittance at eight or nine packed dining-rooms in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly Circus.

The theatres housing popular plays shared the same inflated prosperity. London had never known such a season. Yet in spite of its easy chatter, its surface cheerfulness, it was, to an extent, restrained. There was little dancing outside of private houses. Evening clothes were frowned upon. You saw them only among the vulgar patrons of the most blatant hotels. Khaki was the colour note by day and by night. Those wearing it went about with women soberly dressed. And in nearly every bravely smiling face you caught an appreciation of imminence. The eyes of soldiers and the eyes of wives, sweethearts, and relatives seemed strained to regard an unknown and melancholy prospect.

In a sense, you felt yourself an intruder. Civilian clothing was an anachronism in London. You realised that the soldier was responsible for this city, crowded and a trifle unreal. You wondered if all of England was like this. You felt that you must see the country districts.

For this excursion an American acquaintance and I took advantage of one of the bank holidays. We drove first of all to Cambridge. Even on the road we were taught that rural England was more thoroughly transformed than the metropolis. We passed aviation instruction grounds. We saw practice observation balloons in the air unwieldy, misshapen objects, carrying boys ambitious to make themselves targets for German anti-aircraft guns. Transport trains rumbled by. In one or two villages we saw artillery parked. Khaki clad figures paced the sidewalks or strolled among the fields. All England, you felt, was in brown.

The alteration impressed us most, perhaps, in the two great university towns, Oxford and Cambridge. We wandered through quadrangles and halls, missing caps and gowns, seeking the familiar atmosphere of undergraduate activity. Instead we found proctors who displayed their brief rolls of foreigners and the physically unfit.

" The others," they explained gravely, "have gone to the war."

And war was here as thoroughly as it was in London and among the hedges. For, although we found few caps and gowns, there was khaki in plenty. Several of the colleges had been turned into training schools for officers. Men of university age and appearance went through evolutions and studied tactics in ancient quadrangles, preparing themselves to replace the Oxford and Cambridge men already killed or rendered unfit for service.

There were hospitals, too. Figures on crutches or grotesquely bandaged, struggled about the grounds, or across the commons, a couple of years ago noisy and active with the play of whole-bodied, careless youngsters.

It was among the convalescents in Cambridge that I found a veteran of those terrific first days—one of the survivors of hell of Mons and the retreat that had followed; of the battle of the Marne; of the deadly turmoil at Ypres.

He stood in the entrance of a garage at Cambridge as we drove up and paused for gasoline. His hair was grizzled. His face had many small lines which gave it an expression a trifle quizzical. His crutches and the blue band about the sleeve of his service overcoat stamped him as still under hospital treatment. His sergeant's chevrons, the Scotch cap, set at an absurd angle, the little black pipe protruding from his mouth, all secmed pointers for the discontent in his whimsical, middle-aged face. While he talked I waited for an opportunity to find out the cause of his irritation. His most fervent description of the horror of the retreat was:

Oh, mon, but that was warm work."

The same expression did for the Marne and Ypres.

“But when and how were you wounded?” I asked.

He flushed. He puffed rapidly on his stubby black pipe. He no longer looked one straight in the eye. When he answered his voice was low and ashamed.

"Not at Mons," he said, "not at the Marne, not at Ypres."

His voice thickened with revolt.

"It was on a day when there was nothing doing. You understand? As quiet as you please. I lay in a dug-out, reading a letter from my bonnie girl. Along comes a shell and explodes in the entrance—on a quiet day after all my chances. Disgusting's what I say. A fifteen months' job so far, and they took pieces of that letter out of me in France. They took them out of me on the hospital boat. They took them out of me here."

His eyes twinkled.

"And I guess there's some wee paragraphs still there."

But the twinkle died. The discontent returned.

This man had a grievance beyond the manner of his wounding. By chance it developed. My companion fumbled in his pocket and produced some small change.

Perhaps," he suggested, "you'd like to drink to the memory of those days."

The sergeant's discontent exploded.

"A British soldier!” he cried. A sergeant in his Majesty's army! Me drink! I'm a baby. A blessed, swaddling infant."

He tapped the blue band on his arm.

"Just because I'm under hospital treatment I can't have my glass of beer. That's gratitude "You mean, for you! After what I've come through. I've learned my lesson. I've had my dose."

"I said mildly, " that when you are quite well nothing will persuade you to put yourself in the way of such ingratitude again?

You won't go back to war if they need you?"

He braced himself on his crutch. He took one quick puff at his pipe.

"Like to see," he said guffly, "the man that'd ask me that when I'm good and well."

He raised his hand in a simple salute. So they grumble, these veterans!

When one turns from such refuse of battle to the untried material one endeavours not to forecast. By chance we came at nightfall to a town which was the centre of a vast training cantonment. Because of the restrictions on automobile lights it is necessary to stop where darkness catches you. We watched the dusk descend over the green and rolling hills. From the distant hamlets, from the nearer cottages, picturesque, with low thatched roofs, no lights gleamed. The twilight acquired a primeval quality. It encased one as in an armour against an eager and treacherous enemy.

Soldiers, too self-conscious, perhaps because of this primitive projection from their surroundings, guided with sentimental gestures along the road side smirking or bashful girls. Sometimes the girls laughed, but not frequently. And the change grasped one tighter than ever because of this pursuit of romance, almost reluctant and a little appalled, through the turmoil of a dreadful reality.

We hurried on. Utter darkness caught us in the main street. We crept the few remaining yards to the hotel we had chosen. A dining-room, brown and black with khaki and the usual soberly dressed women, greeted us. The proprietor was regretful. We could have dinner but no room. As we ate, our feeling of intrusion increased. These women, it was clear, had left their homes to live in an uncomfortable hotel in order that they might be with their husbands, their sons, or their brothers until the order should be given, until this cantonment should break up, until these officers should leave for Flanders to face the chances of which the newspapers with thoughtless cruelty perpetually reminded them. From their bearing you caught their appraisal of each day's value. There was little laughter. The murmuring voices created a monotone, full of misgivings, pitifully abashed.

It was a relief to go forth with a guide to seek a lodging. Just across a stone bridge we found it in a small, quaint hotel. This, too, was crowded with officers and their families. In the tiny bar you heard only military talk.

"How are your fellows doing with their patrol work?"

"Jolly well. It's almost a pity there aren't Huns about for them to fool."

Or: "What about Captain Smith, Doctor?

A laugh from the doctor.

“Measles, of all things! Must have got it on leave. Fortunately no one's been exposed."

You travel safely in England these days only with an identity book, furnished after investigation by the police of the district in which you live. It is required that you report yourself and have your book stamped by the local police in every town you visit in the forbidden districts. We set forth, therefore, for the police station. As soon as we had crossed the stone bridge we became hopelessly lost. I had never dreamed of such darkness. There was no moon. The sky was clouded, obscuring the stars. From no building escaped the faintest gleam of light. In the main street you could fancy yourself in a wilderness. The night was like a smothering blanket. It appeared to offer your outstretched hands a palpable resistance.

People ran into you or you ran into others, laughing apologies. "Where is the police station?"

"Heaven knows. By daylight it ought to be a couple of blocks to the left, if you run into the church first."

“How will we know the church?

It is very large, and solid," a wag answered. "You'll recognise it if it stops you."

A constable, met in this obscure and abrupt fashion, kindly took us in tow. With whispered sympathy he stamped our books.

"Now," he asked, “do you think you can find your way back. It' a long time, you know, before daybreak."

He gave us minute directions. We followed them almost wholly by the sense of touch.

It was difficult to go to sleep that night. Until very late I listened to the perpetual shuffling of feet along the sidewalks—the tentative feet of countless young men, condemned to war, groping a course through a complete and inimical darkness.

After that London was no longer black. As we drove in, its few hooded lamps seemed brazenly inviting disaster. We brought back to it one conviction. Rural England is not apathetic. All Britain is heart and soul in the war. Even then it was hard to accept as real the brilliant, careless complacency of our own country. That became a memory from the remote past.

Not many days after, the lesson was strengthened by the sight of heroes marching through an admiring, worshipful multitude. I hadn't realised that the war already had its memorial days. On that morning the few that remained of the Australian and New Zealand troops who made the heroic and tragic landing at Gallipoli were gathered in London for what will always be called in their honour Anzac Day.

It brought the war very close to step into the Strand and to see above the bobbing heads of a nearly silent crowd the brown campaign hats with coloured bands of the New Zealanders. There were so many spectators—women, old men, young girls, and a multitude of youths in uniform—that it was difficult at first to get close to the marchers. At the curb finally, one no longer needed to probe that silence of the great crowd, singular, a little startling. The faces of the soldiers, beneath a bright animation, were serious and full of remembrance. The brisk, round notes of the bugles and the tapping of drums were unlike such sounds as we remember them on Fifth Avenue or in the armouries of a land at peace. With a lithe rhythm the thin brown line came on. It was a survival. With it marched ghosts, an infinite army of shadows—once such men as these, and familiar and friendly to these eyes which glanced curiously at the human river of the Strand.

Mere boys, here were veterans of such fighting as the world has seldom seen. It was disquieting to forecast.

In a few weeks how many more shadows would crowd the thinned ranks!

The Australians joined the New Zealanders. They marched to Westminster Abbey, where the Queen and King came to mourn with them, to share as far as possible in their sombre pride. The crowd filled the sidewalks and the streets. Men and women bent from windows, clung to railings, sought a precarious footing on the wheels of wagons, or about stalled omnibuses. It was as great as the crowd at a football game. It was as soundless as those who gape at the funeral procession of some imposing personage.

A group of wounded stood on the roof of a low building near the Abbey entrance. The Queen and King paced from the Abbey. The King wore a service uniform similar to the uniforms of the wounded on the low roof. As he stepped into his carriage a single hand protruded from the mangled group. A single voice cried out, piercingly, hysterically, as if the King must be made to hear and understand and perform a miracle:

"Think of my arm! Oh, think of my arm!"

The crowd was too dense to get fingers to ears. Nor would it have been any use, for from the Abbey deliberately emerged a column whose eloquence was voiceless. Nurses in melancholy grey wheeled incomplete men in invalid chairs or blanket-covered stretchers down the foot-paths between the lawns. Some crawled painfully after, on crutches, or bent over like very old men who can no longer measure their strength. The comparatively sound followed, filling Parliament Square in ranks that awaited the word to march. Policemen spoke roughly, forcing stragglers into the ranks. This picture of a constable, guardian of peace, handling a soldier, instrument of death, created an incongruity that pointed the whole illogical effrontery of war.

Again the bugles blared. Again the brown ranks stepped quickly out—two thousand men, nearly all of whom had been wounded or had suffered from the fevers of camp life. Again the procession of handsome, purposeful young faces moved swiftly by, with groping expressions, as if missing some one. The incomplete wrecks on the stretchers and in the chairs made futile movements, attempted a fragile cheer. The sun continued its brilliancy, untroubled by the smallest cloud. It was like the phantasmagoria of nightmare beneath a heaven crowded with white tempest. One wanted to fling up one's hands and burst into tears for the dead—and for those not yet dead.