“It took me five hours to write,” he said, “but I worked it all out first. I don’t say it’s real poetry; but it does what I set out to do. It appeals to the imagination. It starts off with colours, green and yellow, that at once introduce an atmosphere. Then India: well, every one’s got his idea of India; it’s a symbol. It conveys something very definite to the average mind. Then play on the susceptibilities. ‘His name was mad Karou’: you’ve got the whole man. The public will fill in the picture for you. And then the mystery parts; just leave enough unsaid to make paterfamilias pat himself on the back. ‘I’ve spotted it, he can’t do me. I’m up to that dodge; I know where he went’; and when you are at the end you come back to the point you started from. It carries people back. You’ve got a compact whole: and you touch the sense of pathos, ‘A broken-hearted woman tends the grave of mad Karou.’ They’ll weave a whole story round that woman’s life. Every man’s a novelist at heart. We all tell ourselves stories. And that’s what you’ve got to play on.”
And that is where, I think, Milton Hayes’s greatness really lies. He thoroughly understands his audience; he can change places with each individual that is listening to him. He never has to try a thing on some one first to see whether it will go. He knows at once what will get over and what will not. One of the most amusing sketches he has done was a burlesque of a war-lecture made by a famous London journalist. He mimicked his subject completely, but where the real “punch” lay was in his analysis of the emotions of each individual and couple leaving the hall. He knew exactly what each one would make of it.
One of his chief maxims, too, is that an actor must remember that he is performing not to individuals but to couples.
“People don’t go to shows by themselves,” he said, “and you must remember that a thing that may sound silly to a man when he’s by himself sounds very different when he’s with his best girl. You’ve got to get that moment when a boy wants to squeeze the hand of the girl he’s sitting next, and the old married couple simper a bit, and think that after all they’ve not had such a bad time together.
“And I dare say that is why a play like Romance seems so bad to the critic. He’s gone there by himself, when he should have gone there with a girl. Romance has got all the sure hits; it’s steeped in amber light. All the effects, the hidden singer, the one passion, the woman that never marries. But you must not go to a show like that by yourself.”
What others have done unconsciously, Milton Hayes has done consciously. He knows exactly what he is doing, and in consequence relies less on chance than others of his profession, and if, as he promises, he takes to writing musical comedies after the war, there should be very little doubt of his success.
The week at Karlsruhe passed very quickly, and very pleasantly, and I was thoroughly sorry to have to leave, especially as Tarrant and Stone were on the permanent Red Cross staff. The prospect of a new camp at Mainz offered hardly any attractions. There would be nothing there; no library, no sports outfits; we should have all the trouble of starting the machinery of a “lager.” Not one of us looked forward to it.
CHAPTER IV
THE HUNGRY DAYS
§ 1
The entrance of the Citadel Mainz was calculated to inspire the most profound gloom. An enormous gate swung open, revealing a black and cavernous passage. As soon as all were herded in, the gate shut behind us, and we were immersed in darkness. Then another gate at the end of the passage creaked back on unoiled hinges, and ushered us into our new home. That cobwebbed passage was like the neutral space between two worlds. It laid emphasis on captivity.