Memories and Adventures

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Nightmares of the Morning—The Civilian Reserve—The Volunteers—Domestic Life in War Time—German Prisoners—Cipher to our Prisoners—Sir John French—Empress Eugenie—Miracle Town—Armour—Our Tragedy.

I can never forget, and our descendants can never imagine, the strange effect upon the mind which was produced by seeing the whole European fabric drifting to the edge of the chasm with absolute uncertainty as to what would happen when it toppled over. Military surprises, starvation, revolution, bankruptcy—no one knew what so unprecedented an episode would produce. It was all so evidently preventable, and yet it was so madly impossible to prevent it, for the Prussians had stuck their monkey-wrench into the machinery and it would no longer work. As a rule one has wild dreams and wakes to sanity, but on those mornings I left sanity when I woke and found myself in a world of nightmare dreams.

On August 4, when war seemed assured, I had a note from Mr. Goldsmith, a plumber in the village: “There is a feeling in Crowborough that something should be done.” This made me laugh at first, but presently I thought more seriously of it. After all, Crowborough was one of a thousand villages, and we might be planning and acting for all. Therefore I had notices rapidly printed. I distributed them and put them at road corners, and the same evening (August 4) we held a village meeting and started the Volunteers, a force which soon grew to 200,000 men.

The old Volunteers had become extinct when the Territorials had been organized some ten or twelve years before. But this new force which I conceived was to be a universal one, where every citizen, young and old, should be trained to arms—a great stockpot into which the nation could dip and draw its needs. We named ourselves the Civilian Reserve. No one, I reflected, could be the worse in such days for being able to drill and to shoot, or for being assembled in organized units. Government was too preoccupied to do anything, and we must show initiative for ourselves. After I had propounded my scheme, I signed the roll myself, and 120 men did the same. Those were the first men in the Volunteer Force. Next evening we assembled at the drill-hall, found out who could drill us, chose our non-commissioned officers and set to work to form ourselves into an efficient company. Gillette, my American actor friend, had got stranded in England, and he was an interested spectator on this occasion. For the time being I took command.

I had notified the War Office what we had done and asked for official sanction. We were careful not to stand in the way of recruiting and determined to admit none who could reasonably join up at once. When the plan began to work I wrote a description of our methods to “The Times.” As a consequence I received requests for our rules and methods from 1,200 towns and villages. My secretary and I worked all day getting these off, and in many cases the inquiries led to the formation of similar companies.

For about a fortnight all went well. We drilled every day, though we had no weapons. At the end of that time there came a peremptory order from the War Office: “All unauthorized bodies to be at once disbanded.” Unquestioning and cheerful obedience is the first law in time of war. The company was on parade. I read out the telegram and then said: “Right turn! Dismiss!” With this laconic order the Civilian Reserve dissolved for ever.

But it had a speedy and glorious resurrection. There was a central body in London with some remote connection with the old Volunteer Force. Lord Desborough was chairman of this, and there could not have been a better man. The Government put the formation of a Volunteer Force into the charge of this committee, to which I was elected. Mr. Percy Harris was the secretary and showed great energy. I wrote to all the 1,200 applicants referring them to this new centre, and we, the Crowborough body, now became the Crowborough Company of the Sixth Royal Sussex Volunteer Regiment. That we were the first company in the country was shown by the “Volunteer Gazette” when a prize was awarded for this distinction. Under its new shape Captain St. Quintin, who had been a soldier, became our leader, and Mr. Gresson and Mr. Druce, both of them famous cricketers, our lieutenants. Goldsmith was one of the sergeants, and I remained a full private for four years of war, and an extra half-year before we were demobilized. Our ranks fluctuated, for as the age limit of service gradually rose we passed many men into the regular Army, but we filled up with new recruits, and we were always about a hundred strong. Our drill and discipline were excellent, and when we received our rifles and bayonets we soon learned to use them, nor were our marching powers contemptible when one remembers that many of the men were in the fifties and even in the sixties. It was quite usual for us to march from Crowborough to Frant, with our rifles and equipment, to drill for a long hour in a heavy marshy field, and then to march back, singing all the way. It would be a good fourteen miles, apart from the drill.

I have very pleasant recollections of that long period of service. I learned to know my neighbours who stood in the same ranks, and I hope that they also learned to know me as they could not otherwise. We had frequent camps, field days and inspections. On one occasion 8,000 of us were assembled, and I am bound to say that I have never seen a finer body of men, though they were rather of the police-constable than of the purely military type. The spirit was excellent, and I am sure that if we had had our chance we should have done well in action. But it was hard to know how to get the chance save in case of invasion. We were the remaining pivots of national life, and could only be spared for short periods or chaos would follow. But a week or two in case of invasion was well within our powers, and such a chance would have been eagerly hailed. No doubt our presence enabled the Government to strip the country of regular troops far more than they would have dared otherwise to do. Twice, as Repington’s “Memoirs” show, there was a question of embodying us for active service, but in each case the emergency passed.

I found the life of a private soldier a delightful one. To be led and not to lead was most restful, and so long as one’s thoughts were bounded by the polishing of one’s buttons and buckles, or the cleansing of one’s rifle, one was quietly happy. In that long period I shared every phase of my companions’ life. I have stood in the queue with my pannikin to get a welcome drink of beer, and I have slept in a bell-tent on a summer night with a Sussex yokel blissfully snoring upon each of my shoulders. Sometimes amusing situations arose. I remember a new adjutant arriving and reviewing us. When he got opposite to me in his inspection, his eyes were caught by my South African medal. “You have seen service, my man,” said he. “Yes, sir,” I answered. He was a little cocky fellow who might well have been my son so far as age went. When he had passed down the line, he said to our C.O., St. Quintin: “Who is that big fellow on the right of the rear rank?” “That’s Sherlock Holmes,” said C.O. “Good Lord!” said the adjutant, “I hope he does not mind my ‘My manning’ him!” “He just loves it,” said St. Quintin, which showed that he knew me.

The other big factor which covered the whole period of the war, and some time after it, was my writing the History of the European campaign, which I published volume by volume under the name of “The British Campaign in France and Flanders.” My information was particularly good, for I had organized a very extensive correspondence with the generals, who were by no means anxious for self-advertisement, but were, on the other hand, very keen that the deeds of their particular troops should have full justice done them. In this way I was able to be the first to describe in print the full battle-line with all the divisions, and even brigades in their correct places from Mons onwards to the last fight before the Armistice. When I think what a fuss was made in the old days when any Correspondent got the account of a single Colonial battle before his comrades, it is amazing to me that hardly a single paper ever commented, in reviewing these six successive volumes, upon the fact that I was really the only public source of supply of accurate and detailed information. I can only suppose that they could not believe it to be true. I had no help but only hindrance from the War Office, and everything I got was by means which were equally open to anyone else who took the trouble to organize them. Of course, I was bowdlerized and blue-pencilled by censors, but still the fact remains that a dozen great battle-lines were first charted by me. I have since read the official account so far as it has gone, and find little to change in my own, though the German and French records are now available to broaden the picture. For the moment war literature is out of fashion, and my war history, which reflects all the passion and pain of those hard days, has never come into its own. I would reckon it the greatest and most undeserved literary disappointment of my life if I did not know that the end is not yet and that it may mirror those great times to those who are to come.