ON A LEGEND OF THE WAR
I was going down to the country the other night when I fell into conversation with a soldier who was going home on leave. He was a reservist, who, after leaving the Army, had taken to gardening, and who had been called up at the beginning of the war. He had many interesting things to tell, which he told in that unromantic, matter-of-fact fashion peculiar to the British soldier. But something he said about his cousin led him to make a reference to Lord Kitchener, and I noticed that he spoke of the great soldier as if he were living.
"But," said I, "do you think Kitchener wasn't drowned?"
"Yes," he replied, "I can't never believe he was drowned."
"But why?"
"Well, he hadn't no escort. You're not going to make me believe he didn't know what he was doing when he went off and didn't have no escort. It stands to reason. He wasn't no stick of rhubub, as you might say. He was a hard man on the soldier, but he had foresight, he had. He could look ahead. That's what he could do. He could look ahead. What did he say about the war? Three years, he said, or the duration, and he was about right. He wasn't the man to get drowned by an oversight—not him. Stands to reason.
"Same with Hector Macdonald," he said, warming to his theme. "He's alive right enough. He's fighting for the Germans. Why, I know a man who see him in a German uniform before the war began. I should know him if I see him. He inspected me often. He made a fool of himself at Monte Carlo and that sort o' thing, and just went off to get a new start, as you might say.
"And look at Hamel. He ain't dead—course not. He went to Germany—that's what he did. Stands to reason."
"And what has become of Kitchener?" I asked. "Is he fighting for the Germans too?"
Well no. That was too tall an order even for his credulity. He boggled a bit at the hedge and then proceeded: