LXXVIII
London
September 12, 1918
I've a great piece of news for you. It's exceedingly likely that I shall visit the States on the British Mission. This must read to you like moonshine—but it's a quite plausible fact. I shall not be allowed to go back to the Front for three months, as it will probably be that time before I am pronounced fit for active service. It is suggested that during that time I come to the States to speak on Anglo-American relations. I feel very loath to postpone my return to the Front by a single day, and would only do so if I were quite sure that I should not be fit for active service again before the winter settles down, when the attack will end. I don't want to miss an hour of the great offensive. If I agree to come to the States, I shall only do it on the pledge that I am sent straight back to France on my return. This would give me a right to speak to Americans as nothing else would. I could not speak of the war unless I was returning to it. I owe the Lord a death for every life of my men's that has been taken—and I want to get back to where I can pay the debt. But wouldn't it be ripping to have a few weeks all together again? Can't I picture myself in my little study at the top of the house and in my old bedroom! I may even manage a Christmas with you!
Having had my wound dressed and having togged myself up in my new uniform, I jumped into the inevitable taxi and went to lunch at the Ritz with some of the visiting American editors. It was delightfully refreshing to listen to Charlie Towne's, the editor of McClure's, wild enthusiasm for the courageous high spirits of England. “The streets are dark at night,” he said, “but in the people's hearts there is more light than ever.” Two stories were told, illuminatingly true, of the way in which the average Englishman carries on. There was an officer who had had an eye shot out; the cavity was filled with an artificial one. Towne felt a profound pity for him, but at the same time he was rather surprised to see that the chap wore a monocle in the eye that was sightless. At last he plucked up courage to ask him what was the object of the monocle. The chap smiled drolly. “I do it for a rag,” he said; “it makes me look more funny.”
A Canadian Tommy, without any legs, was being wheeled down a station platform. Another wounded Tommy called out to him, “You're not on the staff, Bill. Why don't yer get out and walk?”
“'Cause I'm as good as a dook now,” the chap replied; “for the rest of me life I'm a kerridge gent.”
The thing that seems to have impressed these American visitors most of all is the way in which our soldiers make adversity appear comic by their triumphant capacity for mockery.
Towne, being a lover of poetry, was terrifically keen to visit Goldsmith's grave. I hadn't the foggiest idea where it was, but after lunch we set out in search of it. At last we found it in a shady backwater of the Inner Temple—a simple slab on which the only inscription was the name, “Oliver Goldsmith.” I know of only one parallel to this for illustrious brevity; a gravestone in Paris, from which even the Christian name is omitted and on which the solitary word “Heine” is written. I liked to see the poet from Broadway bare his head as he stood by the long-dead English poet's grave. Behind us in the Temple chapel the confident soprano of boys' voices soared. It was a grey-blue day, made tawny for brave moments by fugitive stabs of sunshine. Lime trees dappled the cold courtyard with shadows; leaves drifted down like gilded largesse. Old men, with dimming eyes and stooped backs, shuffled from stairway to stairway, carrying heavy ledgers. The rumble of Fleet Street reached us comfortingly, like the sound of distant surf on an unseen shore. My thoughts wrenched themselves free from the scenes of blood and struggle in which I participated less than two weeks ago. Here, in that simple inscription, was the symbol of the one quality which survives Time's erasures—character which loved and won love intensely.
Queer letters you get from me! I write the way I feel from London or the battlefield. My room-mate is lying in bed, his poor shattered leg propped up on a pillow and a cheery smile about his lips. In the well of the hospital someone is playing—playing love-songs as though there were no war. The music, muted by distance, drifts in to me through the open window. I feel that life is mine again; I can hope. At the Front to hope too much was to court disappointment. To be alive is thrilling and delicious.