‘That’s a settled thing, I fancy,’ said the General ‘Sir Colin’s word ought to be good for anything at home, and my own should go for something.’
‘Mine won’t be wanting, sir, if they think it worth listening to.’
‘What did you two fall out about?’ the General asked.
Major de Blacquaire dipped into the cigar box which had been pushed over towards him long before, and very thoughtfully fingered an evil-looking Trichinopoli.
‘Why, sir, I believe if the whole truth were told we fell out mainly because I was a bit of a puppy. You’re an older man of the world than I am, sir, and I dare say you can’t have failed to notice that some men who think they are insiders are outsiders, and that some of the fellows they despise are better than themselves.’
‘Do you know, De Blacquaire,’ said the General, ‘I like that?’
‘A year in camp, and two or three months in hospital, will do a lot towards changing a man’s opinions.’
‘Won’t they?’ cried the General. ‘Egad! Won’t they?’ The old Christian Quixote mounted his hobby, and rode. ‘There are things in war that nobody wants to think about. It’s an ugly trade. When I was a youngster, and in my first action I was very hard-pressed, and I caught a bayonet out of the hand of a fellow who was dropping at my side, and I had to use it. It’s fifty years ago now, but the man squealed and I haven’t forgotten it, and I’m never likely to forget it. But a man is born to die, sir, and he’s born to do his duty. I dare say I’m a simple thinker, Major de Blacquaire, but there are things a hundred times worse than war, and if you didn’t believe that God sent them, you would have to turn infidel. I’ve seen two or three choleras, here and there, and a Black Death and a bubonic plague. What does it all mean? Jarring forces, sir, which Heaven will reconcile in its own good time. And that’s what war means to my mind. You go where you’re sent, just as the germ of disease, or whatever you call it, goes, and you do what you are set to do. And I’ll say this for war, sir, as an old Christian man who has spent his life at it. It’s the fire of God, to my way of thinking, and it burns out all manner of meannesses, and hypocrisies, and we should have a devil of a lot more to be ashamed of than we have if we didn’t get into a solid fight now and again.’
‘It is a school, sir,’ said De Blacquaire.
‘By heaven, sir,’ said the solemn General, ‘it is a school.’