The Human Boy and the War

by Eden Phillpotts

Travers said: "It's like this. Germany takes herself too seriously and other countries not seriously enough. An Englishman is always saying his own country is going to the dogs, and his Army's rotten, and his Navy only a lot of old sardine tins that ought to be scrapped, and all that sort of thing. That's his way, and when you bally Germans hear us talk like that, you go and believe it, and don't understand it's our national character to run ourselves down. And you chaps always go to the other extreme and brag about your army, and your guns, and your discipline, and your genius, and all the rest of it; and, of course, we don't believe you in the least, because gas like that carries its own reward, and nobody in the world could be so much better than all the rest of the world as you think you are. And if you imagine, because we run ourselves down, we would let anybody else dare to run us down, you're wrong. And if you think our free army is frightened of your slave army, and would mind taking you on, ten to one, on land or sea, you're also wrong."

It was a prophecy in a way, though Travers little knew it, for the war broke out next holidays, and when we went back to school, it was in full swing. And so, naturally, was Wundt. He wasn't going home for the vac. in any case, but stopping at Merivale, and he had done so. He told me the Doctor had talked some piffle to him about the duties of non-combatants; but, as Wundt truly said, every German in the world is a combatant in time of war, and if you can't do one thing, you must try and do another. In fact, old Dunston little knew the German character, and when he found it out, he was a good bit astonished, not to say hurt.

He, however, discovered it jolly quickly, and I did first of all, because, owing to being rather interested in human nature, I encouraged Wundt in a sort of way, and let him talk to me, and tried to see things from his point of view, as far as I could--that is, without doing anything unsporting to England. The great point was to keep your temper with Wundt; and, of course, most chaps couldn't, because he was so beastly sure he was right--at least, his nation was. But I didn't mind all that humbug, and found, by being patient with him, that, under all this flare-up, he was what you might call deadly keen on his blessed Fatherland. He fairly panted with patriotism, and in these moments, quite ignored my feelings.

"Now you know why I wanted to grow up," he said to me. "I hoped this wouldn't have happened till I could be in it. But it will be all over and your country a thing of the past before I'm sixteen--worse luck!"

As he was going to be sixteen in October, that was a bit hopeful of Wundt. His father or somebody had stuffed him up that Germany was being sat on by the world, and couldn't stand it much longer; and after the war began, he honestly believed that it was the end of England, and, in a way, he was more decent than ever he'd been before. When we came back at the end of the holidays, Wundt welcomed me in a very queer sort of manner. Somebody had treated me just the same in the past, and, after trying for a week to think who it was, I remembered it was my Uncle Samuel, after I'd lost my mother. Wundt evidently felt sorry for all of us in general and for me in particular as his special friend.

"Of course," he said, "I can't pretend I didn't want it to happen; but you won't see it is for the good of the world that your country's got to go down. And so I'm sorry for you, if anything."

"Do you really think it has got to go down?" I asked Wundt, and he said it wasn't so much what he thought as what was bound to take place.

"Either England's got to go, or else Germany," he said, "and as the Teuton is the world-power for religion and culture and everything that really matters, and also miles strongest, England's naturally got to go. You've had your turn; now it's ours. The Kaiser speaks, Germany listens and obeys."

Booth asked him what day the Germans would be at Merivale, and if he'd got a plan of campaign marked out; and he said about the half-term holiday, or earlier, they would come. And Booth said that would mean a short term, anyway, which had its bright side.

Then Tracey, who is awful sarcastic, though it doesn't generally come off, asked Wundt how he had arrived at this idea, and Wundt said from reading papers that his father had sent him via Holland.