LIV
France June 20, 1918
I've just finished reading a big batch of mail, and have had dinner and now sit looking out on the drenched country which is covered with a shabby evening sky. In the church, which adjoins the monastery in which I stay, monks are chanting. They are always chanting. One wonders for what it is that they pray; deeds at any moment, let alone the present, are so much better. I can picture what would happen here if the Germans came. I have caught myself thinking of Marie Odelle; our scenery is similar to that pictured in the play. Strange how one goes to imagination in search of illustrations of reality!
You, at your end, seem to have been having some wildly exciting times with your processions in which the Kaiser has been publicly done away with. It's a phase which all countries go through, I suppose. England did at the beginning of the war. But now we entrain for the Front without bands playing, and do our best not to attract attention. We're a little ashamed of arousing other people's emotions on our behalf. All we want is a “Cheerio and God bless You,” for our good-bye. If we come back, it will be “jolly fine"; and if we don't, “C'est la guerre”—we shrug our shoulders. In either event we see no reason why the feelings should be harrowed of those who stop behind.
After a series of very early morning rises, I have been picturing to myself the day when I once again wake up at the Ritz, with a camouflaged foreigner to bring my breakfast to my pillow and then leave me in peace till twelve o'clock. I wonder now why I ever left my bed in peace times and find myself marvelling at my unnecessary energy. The French patriot who held receptions and did the business of the day while sitting in a bath of milk, had mastered the art of life. Unfortunately, if I remember rightly, he was made a glaring example of sloth by being “done in” while thus pleasurably occupied.
I'm off to do my rounds as orderly officer now. My sergeant is waiting, so, as the men say, “I must ring off.”
LV
France June 23, 1918
Here I sit on a summer's evening in the red-tiled kitchen of an old farmhouse. Immediately under the open window to my right is the inevitable manure-heap—the size of which, they say, denotes the extent of the farmer's wealth. Barn-roofs, ochre-red, shine vividly in the pale gold of the sunset; at the end of the yard the walls fall away, giving the glimpse of an orchard with gnarled, lichen-covered fruit-trees. All kinds of birds are twittering and singing; house-swallows dart and dive across open spaces. In the distance the guns are booming. War affords one strange contrasts of sight and sound. Not many of the peasants have moved away; they have great faith in the Canadians. Every now and then a forlorn group will come trailing down the road between the hedges: an old tumbledown cart, drawn by an old tumble-down horse, piled and pyramided dangerously high with old tumble-down furniture. The people who accompany the vehicle are usually ancient and tumbledown as well. They make me recall someone's description of the Irish emigrants on the St. Lawrence, travelling with “ragged poverty on their backs.” In contrast with these few straggling fugitives, hounded by avaricious fear, is the calm of a country billowy with grain and sociable with the grinning contentment of quite-at-home British Tommies. Everything in their attitude seems to assure the French peasant, “Don't worry, old dear. We're here. Everything's all right.” From barns and houses and bivouacs come the sounds of gramophones, playing selections from quite the latest musical comedies. If you wander back into the fields you will find horsemen going over the jumps, men playing baseball and cricket, officers getting excited over tennis. We even held our Divisional Sports the other day—and this in the midst of the war's greatest offensive. This “'Arf a mo', Kaiser,” attitude of the Canadians would give you some idea of the esteem in which we hold the Hun. Our backs are not against the wall. We still have both the time and the inclination to be sportsmen and to laugh. I'm sure the enemy, grimly obsessed by the idea of breaking our line, never allows himself a moment for recreation, and I should think his balloon-observers, spying on us from the baskets of his distant sausages, must be very chagrined by our frivolity. The papers say, and very probably they're right, that German strategists are far ahead of those possessed by the Allies; but our men have learnt a trick worth all the strategy—they have learnt to laugh both in success and adversity. In this war, I believe we shall find that he who has acquired the habit of a light heart will do the laughing last. I should very much like to know how many gramophones travel with the German Tommies; hardly any, I'll bet. They have their bands with their patriotic music, keeping always before the men the singleness of their purpose. The singleness of their purpose tires them out. On our side of the line patriotism is the last thing you hear about. Thank God, we've got time to forget it.
Whenever I start trying to explain to you the psychology of our fighting-men I'm always conscious that, even while I'm telling you the absolute truth, with the same words I'm creating a wrong impression. Fighting-men aren't magnificent most of the time; they're not idealists; they're not heroic. Very often they're petty and cynical and cowards. They're only magnificent and idealistic and heroic in the decision that brought them here, and in the last supreme moment when they bring their decision to fulfilment.