A Student in Arms Part 2

POTENTATE (_slowly_). Enter!

(_Enter a tall figure in a long black academic gown and black clothes._)

POTENTATE (_with an attempt at gaiety_). Come in, my dear Sage, come in. You are welcome. (_A little anxiously_) You have the crystal?

Good. How is the Master? Still busy devising new means of victory?

THE SAGE. My master's poor skill is always at your service, Sire. You have only to command.

POTENTATE. I know it. Now let me have the crystal. I would see if possible the scene of to-day's victory in Flanders.

(_The_ SAGE _hands him the crystal with a low bow. The_ POTENTATE _seizes it eagerly, and gazes into it. A pause._)

POTENTATE (_raising his head suddenly_). Horrible, horrible!

SAGE. Sire?

POTENTATE. This last invention of your master's is inhuman!

SAGE. War is inhuman, Sire. Where a speedy end is desired, is it not kindest to be cruel?

(_The_ POTENTATE _gazes again into the crystal,_ _but starts up immediately with a gasp of horror._)

POTENTATE. Again the same vision! Always after my victories the vision of the Crucified, with the stern reproachful eyes! Am I not the Lord's appointed instrument? What means it? Tell your master that I will have no more of his inventions. They are too diabolical! They imperil my cause!

SAGE (_pointing to the crystal_). Look again, Sire.

POTENTATE (_gazing into the crystal, and in a low and agonized voice_). Time with his scythe raised menacingly against me.

(_Abruptly_) This is a trickery, Sirrah! Have a care! But I will not be tricked. Are my troops not brave? Are they not invincible? Can they not win by their proven valour? Who can stand against them, for the strength of the Lord is in their right hands?

(_Enter GENERAL hastily_)

GENERAL. Sire.... (_He starts, and stops short_).

POTENTATE (_testily_). Go on, go on. What is it?

GENERAL. Sire, the English counterattack has for the moment succeeded.

Infuriated by their defeat they fought so that no man could resist them. They have regained the trenches they had lost, but we hope to attack again to-morrow, when--

POTENTATE. Enough! Leave me!

(_The_ GENERAL _withdraws, and the_ POTENTATE _leans forward with his head on his hands._)

SAGE (_commiseratingly_). Apparently other troops are brave besides your own, Sire!

POTENTATE (_brokenly_). The cowards! The cowards! Five nations against three! Alas, my poor Prussians!

SAGE. If you will look once more into the crystal, Sire, I think you will see something that will interest you.

(_The_ POTENTATE _takes the crystal again, but without confidence._)

POTENTATE (_in a slow recitative_). A stricken field by night. The dead lie everywhere, German and English, side by side. But all are not dead. Some are but wounded. They help one another. Prussian and Briton help one another, with painful smiles on their white faces. What? Have they forgotten their hate? My Prussians! Can you so soon forget? I mourn for you! But who are these? White figures, vague, elusive! See, they seem to come down from above. They are carrying away the souls of my Prussians! And of the accursed Englis.h.!.+ What! One Paradise for both! Impossible! And who is that watching? He who with a smile so loving, and yet so stern ... Ah!... My G.o.d ... no!... not I....

(_The_ POTENTATE _rises with a strangled cry, and sinks into his chair a nerveless wreck. The_ SAGE _watches coolly, with a cynical smile._)

SAGE. So, Sire, you must find room for the English in that kingdom of yours and G.o.d's! Perchance it is more catholic than we had thought!

(_The_ POTENTATE _groans._)

SAGE. Sire, you have seen some truth to-night. Is courage, is G.o.d, all on your side? Is Time on your side? Shall I go back to my master and tell him that you need no more of his inventions?

(_He pauses, and glances at the_ POTENTATE _with a look of contempt, and then turns to go. The_ POTENTATE _looks round him with a ghastly stare._)

POTENTATE (_feebly_). No ... the Crucified ... Time ... Stay, stay!

(_The_ SAGE _turns with a gesture of triumph._)

(_Curtain._)

II

THE BAD SIDE OF MILITARY SERVICE

A Padre who has earned the right to talk about the "average Tommy,"

writes to me that _A Student in Arms_ gives a very one-sided picture of him. While cordially admitting his unselfishness, his good comrades.h.i.+p, his patience, and his pluck, my friend challenges me to deny that military, and especially active, service often has a brutalizing effect on the soldier, weakening his moral fibres, and causing him to sink to a low animal level.

Those who are in the habit of reading between the lines will, I think, often have seen the shadow of this darker side of army life on the pages of _A Student in Arms_; but I have not written of it specifically for several reasons. It will suffice if I mention two.

First, I was writing mainly of the private and the N.C.O. Rightly or wrongly, I imagined that those for whom I was writing were in the habit of taking for granted this darker side of life in the ranks. I imagined that they thought of the "lower cla.s.ses" as being naturally coa.r.s.er and more animal than the "upper cla.s.ses." I wanted then, and I want now, to contradict that belief with all the vehemence of which I am capable. Officers and men necessarily develop different qualities, different forms of expression, different mental att.i.tudes. But I am confident that I speak the truth when I say that essentially, and in the eyes of G.o.d there is nothing to choose between them.

If I must write of the brutalizing effect of war on the soldier, let it be clearly understood that I am speaking, not of officers only, nor of privates only, but of fighting men of every cla.s.s and rank.

As a matter of fact I have never, whether before or during the war, belonged to a mess where the tone was cleaner or more wholesome than it was in the Sergeants' Mess of my old battalion.

My second reason for not writing about the bad side of Army life was that mere condemnation is so futile. I have listened to countless sermons in which the "l.u.s.ts of the flesh" were denounced, and have known for certain that their power for good was _nil_. If I write about it now, it is only because I hope that I may be able to make clearer the causes and processes of such moral deterioration as exists, and thus to help those who are trying to combat it, to do so with greater understanding and sympathy.

Even in England most officers, and all privates, are cut off from their womenfolk. Mothers, sisters, wives, and sweethearts are inaccessible. All have a certain amount of leisure, and very little to do with it. All are physically fit and mentally rather unoccupied.

All are living under an unnatural discipline from which, when the last parade of the day is over, there is a natural reaction. Finally, wherever there are troops, and especially in war time, there are "bad"

women and weak women. The result is inevitable. A certain number of both officers and men "go wrong."

Fifteen months ago I was a private quartered in a camp near Aldershot.

After tea it began to get dark. The tent was damp, gloomy, and cold.

The Y.M.C.A. tent and the Canteen tent were crowded. One wandered off to the town. The various soldiers' clubs were filled and overflowing.

The bars required more cash than one possessed. The result was that one spent a large part of one's evenings wandering aimlessly about the streets. Fortunately I discovered an upper room in a Wesleyan soldiers' home, where there was generally quiet, and an empty chair.

I shall always be grateful to that "home," for the many hours which I whiled away there with a book and a pipe. But most of us spent a great deal of our leisure, bored and impecunious, "on the streets"; and if a fellow ran up against "a bit of skirt," he was generally just in the mood to follow it wherever it might lead. The moral of this is, double your subscriptions to the Y.M.C.A., Church huts, soldiers' clubs, or whatever organization you fancy! You will be helping to combat vice in the only sensible way.

I don't suppose that the officers were much better off than we were.

Their tents may have been a little lighter and less crowded than ours.