“And she ain't a wicked girl,” said one of the good ladies on the bus. “She didn't mean no harm. She was just soft-like to a Tommy on leave, I expect. It was 'ard lines on 'er. But that Phil—my goodness, he'll make 'er a good 'usband. Is the child born? I should just fink so. 'E's that proud, she might be 'is own dawter. 'E carries 'er raund all over the plaice, Lord bless yer. And 'is wife's people, they can't make too much of 'im. No, 'e's not strong—a C 3 man. I thought I told yer. She 'as ter work to 'elp 'im along. But between 'em——There! I'm 'ats h'orf to Phil. They're a bloomin' pair of love-birds.”
I like to think of Phil, don't you? I like to know that chaps like him are in the world. He couldn't fight the Germans; but he could play the man by a dead soldier.
That's a little bit of real life to help you along. Now I'm going to knock off and rest.
XXXI
London
February 24, 1918
I'm not spending much time on letter-writing just at present. From morning till night, just as I did when I was writing The Glory of the Trenches, I shove away at my new book. I am most anxious to get it creditably finished and soon. The weather is getting quite ripping for the Front and I'm keen to be back in time for the spring offensive.
You'll be pleased to know that, under my encouragement, your youngest son has broken out into literature. He did it while I was away in France. And the result is extraordinarily fine. He's managed to fling the spirit of his job on paper—it lives and gets you. When they are asked at the end of a patrol what they have been doing, they answer, “Pushing Water”—so that he's made that answer his title.
When I took the manuscript to W., he said: “But haven't you another brother? What's he doing? Where's his manuscript? And what about your mother and sister in America, and your sister in Holland? Don't tell me that they're not all writing?”
At that moment I felt a deep sympathy for Solomon, who I'm sure must have been a publisher. Only a publisher would say so tiredly: “Of making many books there is no end.”