Parker, too, one day found a remark which ever afterwards had a brilliant success. He got it out of a letter that a chaplain had written to the Times. "The life of the soldier," wrote this excellent man, "is one of great hardship; not infrequently mingled with moments of real danger."
The colonel thoroughly enjoys the unconscious humour of this remark, and would quote it whenever a shell scattered gravel over him. But his great resource, if the conversation bores him, is to attack the padre on his two weak points: bishops and Scotchmen.
The padre, who comes from the Highlands, is madly patriotic. He is convinced that it is only Scotchmen who play the game and who are really killed.
"If history told the truth," he says, "this war would not be called the European War, but the war between Scotland and Germany."
The colonel is Scotch himself, but he is fair, and every time he finds in the papers the casualty lists of the Irish Guards or the Welsh Fusiliers he reads them out in a loud voice to the padre, who, to keep his end up, maintains that the Welsh Fusiliers and Irish Guards are recruited in Aberdeen. This is his invariable retort.
All this may appear rather puerile to you, my friend, but these childish things are the only bright spots in our boring, bombarded existence. Yes, these wonderful men have remained children in many ways; they have the fresh outlook, and the inordinate love of games, and our rustic shelter often seems to me like a nursery of heroes.
But I have profound faith in them; their profession of empire-builders has inspired them with high ideals of the duty of the white man. The colonel and Parker are "Sahibs" whom nothing on earth would turn from the path they have chosen. To despise danger, to stand firm under fire, is not an act of courage in their eyes—it is simply part of their education. If a small dog stands up to a big one they say gravely, "He is a gentleman."
A true gentleman, you see, is very nearly the most sympathetic type which evolution has produced among the pitiful group of creatures who are at this moment making such a noise in the world. Amid the horrible wickedness of the species, the English have established an oasis of courtesy and phlegm. I love them.
I must add that it is a very foolish error to imagine that they are less intelligent than ourselves, in spite of the delight my friend Major Parker pretends to take in affirming the contrary. The truth is that their intelligence follows a different method from ours. Far removed from our standard of rationalism and the pedantic sentiment of the Germans, they delight in a vigorous common sense and all absence of system. Hence a natural and simple manner which makes their sense of humour still more delightful.
But I see, from the window, my horse waiting for me; and I must go round to the surly farmers and get some straw for the quartermaster, who is trying to build stables. But you are furnishing boudoirs, and mind you choose, oh, Amazon, soft, oriental silks.