Having experienced four months of the society of Brag and Snipson, I could not avoid feeling that they were inferior men, who would never by fair means make a mark in the world, and who were not desirable either as friends or enemies.
I had been but a very brief time in Forester’s room before I became deeply interested in him. He used to read a great deal, and had at that time the rare accomplishment of being able to talk about other matters beside “shop.” He was devoted to soldiering, and had studied carefully “Napier’s Peninsula” and other similar books, and used to talk of a night, when lights were out, with Fenton about various actions and their results.
As I look back on those days, I can recall many of the remarks that Forester made, and have been struck with the value of these, and of their practical application even now. One, in particular, I remember was, “that all the extensive theory that we learnt at the Academy would probably never be of use to one in twenty of the cadets in afterlife, whilst we should know nothing about certain practical matters when we became officers, which every non-commissioned officer would be acquainted with.”
“An officer’s head,” said Forester, “ought to be like a soldier’s knapsack—have a few useful things in it always handy and ready for use—just the things required for every day.”
Once, after a long game of chess with Fenton, Forester remarked that people said chess and war were very much alike.
“They would be,” he said, “more alike if, when playing chess, you were bound to move within one minute after your adversary, and also if you had a drum beating in your ears and a fellow shying racket-balls at you. I believe,” he said, “that the men who make the best leaders of troops are usually hard, strong men, without too much brains, whilst the great generals and planners of campaigns are quite different men. These should be careful thinkers, and men with great nervous power, and it is such men who are most upset by disturbing causes. I have often thought,” continued Forester, “that we ought to have a thinking general and a working one—the first to think out the moves, the other to execute them.”
Before I had been long in this room, Forester expressed his opinion about keeping up lights. He said,—
“I think taking away our lights at half-past nine, and leaving us to undress and go to bed in the dark, is absurd; but when I have said to the officer on duty that ‘I have no lights concealed, and no intention of procuring a light,’ I feel bound in honour to act up to what I say.”
“But no one really looks upon the usual report about lights as given on honour,” said Fenton.
“I’ve nothing to do with what other fellows think,” said Forester. “I only know what I state to an officer, and if I keep up lights after having stated I will not do so, I consider I have ‘smashed.’” (Note 1.)