Then he began to make excuses for himself: “It was absurd to go back. Unpatriotic. Unfair to the men. His nerve might give out in a crisis. He might panic; make some ghastly mistake, involving not only his own honour but the lives of others.” . . . This last thought nauseated him; and finally he defeated it.
His physical condition, curiously enough, the man omitted to consider.
“I’ll go back,” said P.J., “be damned if I won’t go back. Self-respect demands it of me. What would happen to the country if everybody who had the slightest excuse stopped at home!”
He began to think about the country, not nebulously but as Something Definite. There were only two classes of people in any country—Citizens and Parasites. The Citizen lived for the country; the Parasite lived on the country. In time of War, the able-bodied citizen had one clear duty—to fight. And he must fight to his last gasp. Any other argument was pure eye-wash.
Peter figured the problem out in his favourite rowing-terms. You had to pull your own weight in the boat. If you didn’t, you became a “passenger.” Racing-eights couldn’t afford “passengers.” And you had to “pull your own weight” from pistol-crack to winning-post. Otherwise, you—not the other seven oarsmen and the cox but you, you yourself—lost the race; but you didn’t lose it for yourself, you lost it for the School.
He tried to get round this by arguing: “But we can’t all be in the Eight. The Eight is a picked body. Besides somebody has to make the boat, the oars: otherwise one couldn’t row at all.”
“Specious!” decided our Mr. Jameson, “very specious. But it doesn’t apply to me. I’m in the Eight—a picked man. I’m trained to row—not to make oars. This is my privilege. If I throw it away—if I refuse to row. . . .” And he thought of Pat’s brother-in-law, Sir Hubert Rawlings, tricked out in “colours” he had not earned, running along the tow-path, barking encouragement to the rowers.
“Swine,” said Peter—and this time he spoke aloud.
His mind was made up: he would finish the course.