Memories and Adventures

by Arthur Conan Doyle

For the rest I had a great deal of literary propaganda work to do. Once it was the “To Arms!” pamphlet written in conjunction with Mr. Smith, soon to become Lord Birkenhead. Once again it was an appeal for our ill-used prisoners. Sometimes Norway, sometimes South America, always the United States, needed treatment. As to my special missions, those I treat in separate chapters.

There are many small but very important details of domestic life during the war which have never been properly described, and could indeed best be described by a woman, for they were usually an invasion of her department. Our descendants will never realize how we were all registered and docketed and rationed, so that the State could give the least to and take the most from each of us. One had food-cards for practically everything, and the card only entitled you to get your meagre portion if it was to be had. Often it wasn’t. I have been at a great lunch with half the grandees of the land, and the Prime Minister to speak. The fare was Irish stew and rice-pudding.

What could man ask for more, but it will need another war to bring it round again. There was a pleasing uncertainty about all meals. There was always a sense of adventure and a wonder whether you would really get something. It all made for appetite. Then there were the darkened windows, the sharp knocking of the police if the blind emitted any light, the vexatious summons for very small offences, the pulling down of every blind on the railway trains. At night one never knew what evil bird was flying overhead or what foul egg would be dropped. Once, as we sat in the theatre at Eastbourne, the whirr of a Zeppelin was heard above us. Half the audience slipped out, the lights were put out, and the play was finished with candles on the stage. When I was lecturing in London the same thing happened, and I finished my lecture in the dark.

Every one found themselves doing strange things. I was not only a private in the Volunteers, but I was a signaller and I was for a time number one of a machine gun. My wife started a home for Belgian refugees in Crowborough. My son was a soldier, first, last, and all the time. My daughter Mary gave herself up altogether to public work, making shells at Vickers and afterwards serving in a canteen. If I may quote a passage from my history: “Grotesque combinations resulted from the eagerness of all classes to lend a hand. An observer has described how a peer and a prize-fighter worked on the same bench at Woolwich, while titled ladies and young girls from cultured homes earned sixteen shillings a week at Erith and boasted in the morning of the number of shell-cases which they had turned, and finished in their hours of night-shift. Truly it had become a national war. Of all its memories none will be stranger than those of the peaceful middle-aged civilians who were seen eagerly reading books of elementary drill in order to prepare themselves to meet the most famous soldiers in Europe, or of the schoolgirls and matrons who donned blue blouses and by their united work surpassed the output of the great death factories of Essen.”

Every house had its vegetable garden and every poor man his allotment, that we might at the worst exist until we could win our peace. The want of sugar and the limitation of tea were the worst privations. My wife, greatly helped by a faithful servant, Jakeman, did wonders in saving food, and we always lived well within our legal rations. This did not save us once from a police raid, because some tea, sent us as a present from India, had arrived. We had already distributed a good deal of it, however, to our less fortunate neighbours, so we came well out of the matter.

I have one singular memory in having to guard German prisoners at work. The Volunteers had a turn at this work, and we spent the night at Lewes Prison. In the early morning, dark and misty, we were mustered, and five prisoners handed over to each of us. Mine worked on a farm some four miles from the town, and thither I had to march them, walking behind them with my rifle on my shoulder. When I had reached the lonely country road, I thought I would get into human touch with these poor slouching wretches, who were still in their stained grey uniforms, and wearing their service caps with the bright red bands which formed a wonderful advertisement of the excellence of German dyes. I halted them, drew them up, and asked them their nationality. Three were from Wurtemburg and two from Prussia. I asked the Wurtemburgers how long they had been prisoners. They said, “Fourteen months.” “Then,” said I, “you were taken by the Canadians at Ypres upon such and such a date.” They were considerably astonished, since I was simply a second-line Tommy from their point of view. Of course, I had the details of the war very clearly in my mind, and I knew that our one big haul of Wurtemburgers had been on that occasion. To this day they must wonder how I knew. I shall not forget that day, for I stood for eight hours leaning on a rifle, amid drizzling rain, while in a little gap of the mist I watched those men loading carts with manure. I can answer for it that they were excellent workers, and they seemed civil, tractable fellows as well.

It was in 1915 that I managed to establish a secret correspondence with the British prisoners at Magdeburg. It was not very difficult to do, and I dare say others managed it as well as I, but it had the effect of cheering them by a little authentic news, for at that time they were only permitted to see German newspapers. It came about in this way. A dear friend of my wife’s, Miss Lily Loder Symonds, had a brother, Captain Willie Loder Symonds, of the Wiltshires, who had been wounded and taken in the stand of the 7th Brigade on the evening before Le Cateau. He was an ingenious fellow and had written home a letter which passed the German censor, because it seemed to consist in the description of a farm, but when read carefully it was clear that it was the conditions of himself and his comrades which he was discussing. It seemed to me that if a man used such an artifice he would be prepared for a similar one in a letter from home. I took one of my books, therefore, and beginning with the third chapter—I guessed the censor would examine the first—I put little needle-pricks under the various printed letters until I had spelled out all the news. I then sent the book and also a letter. In the letter I said that the book was, I feared, rather slow in the opening, but that from Chapter III onwards he might find it more interesting. That was as plain as I dared to make it. Loder Symonds missed the allusion altogether, but by good luck he showed the letter to Captain the Hon. Rupert Keppel, of the Guards, who had been taken at Landrecies. He smelled a rat, borrowed the book, and found my cipher. A message came back to his father, Lord Albemarle, to the effect that he hoped Conan Doyle would send some more books. This was sent on to me, and of course showed me that it was all right. From that time onwards every month or two I pricked off my bulletin, and a long job it was. Finally, I learned that the British papers were allowed for the prisoners, so that my budget was superfluous. However, for a year or two I think it was some solace to them, for I always made it as optimistic as truth would allow—or perhaps a little more so, just to get the average right.

I had some dealings with General French, but only one interview with him. No one can help feeling a deep respect for the soldier who relieved Kimberley and headed off Cronje, or for the man who bore the first hard thrust of the German spear.

My only interview with the General was at the Horse Guards, when he talked very clearly about the military position, though most of what he said as to the changes which modern tactics and heavy guns had caused was rather self-evident. “Your problem always is how to pass the wire and the machine guns. There is no way round. What is the good of talking of invading Austria from the south? You will find the same wire and the same machine guns. We may as well face it in Flanders as anywhere else.” This talk was shortly after Loos, when he had returned from the Army and was at the head of Home Defence. “If you want any point looked up for your history, mind you let me know and I will see that it is done.” This sounded very nice to me, who was in a perpetual state of wanting to know; but as a matter of fact I took it as a mere empty phrase, and so it proved when a week or two later I put it to the test. It was a simple question, but I never got any clear answer.

One pleasing incident occurred in 1917, when a Hull steam trawler which had been named after me, under the able handling of Skipper Addy and Lieutenant McCabe of the Naval Reserve, had an action with a heavily armed modern submarine, the fight lasting for some hours. The Conan Doyle was acting as flagship of a little group of trawlers, and though their guns were popguns compared with that of the German, they so peppered him that he was either sunk or took flight—anyhow, he vanished under the water. The little boat sent me its ship’s bell as a souvenir of the exploit, and I sent some small remembrances in exchange. It was a fine exploit, and I was proud to be connected with it, even in so remote a way.