War Letters of a Public-School Boy

by Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

Paul Jones in his 19th Year.

Though he had read widely and reflected much on human life and destiny, he wore his culture as lightly as a flower. Even after he had left college, he retained the sunny outlook, the gladsomeness and the bloom of boyhood. Wherever he went he carried with him an atmosphere of joy. Fresh ingenuousness and glowing enthusiasm were part of his charm. There was a rich vein of the romantic in his character, but the cast of his mind was philosophical. He had no patience with superficiality masquerading as wisdom, and was quick to detect a fallacy in reasoning. A shining trait in him was truthfulness. He would never compromise or palter with the truth, either by way of suppression, or exaggeration, or casuistical refinement. What Carlyle said of John Sterling applied with remarkable exactitude to Paul Jones: "True above all one may call him; a man of perfect veracity in thought, word and deed; there was no guile or baseness anywhere found in him. Transparent as crystal, he could not hide anything sinister if such there had been to hide."

Affectations in speech or manner, and what schoolboys call "side" or "swank," he abhorred. His free-ranging mind loved to explore and inquire, and he would not be hindered from questionings by the weight of any convention, or the force of any authority. He obeyed Emerson's maxim: "Speak as you think; be what you are." From the vice of envy he was entirely free. His generous spirit loved to praise others, and he was rather prone to self-depreciation. A lenient judge of the actions of other individuals, he was a stern and exacting critic of his own. He had a lofty sense of his personal duty and responsibility; and if ever, or in anything, he fell short of his self-prescribed standard he would, so to say, whip himself with cords. From his boyhood he was distinguished by an extreme conscientiousness. "His chastity of honour felt a stain like a wound." To him conscience was to be reverenced and obeyed as "God's most intimate presence in the soul, and His most perfect image in the world." He had a passionate hatred of injustice, and the very thought of cruelty to human beings or to dumb animals made him aflame with anger. A master or a games captain who allowed himself to be influenced by favouritism he despised. Naturally quick-tempered and impatient, he tried hard to curb these propensities, not always with success; but if he had wounded or wronged anybody, he was eager to atone. Quiet and self-contained in strange company, he was joyous and witty among kindred souls. His manners were cordial and considerate. Servants—how he hated the name!—adored him, and he was always at ease among the working-classes. He was essentially a man's man. To women his attitude was reverential, but he was shy and embarrassed in young feminine society. He used to say apologetically, "I have no small talk," and from the vacuity of the average drawing-room chatter he would silently steal away.

For religious dogmas he cared nothing, but he bowed in reverent homage before the Christ. From some marginal notes he has made on Froude's essay on Newman's "Grammar of Assent," I take these quotations: "After all, what matter what our dogmas if we really follow the example of great teachers like Christ, who had nothing to do with creeds or ritual?" "Every man should be his own priest." The Sermon on the Mount was his religion. One of his favourite Scriptural texts was the familiar one from the Epistle of St. James (i, 27): "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Froude in one of his essays writes of the necessity for a campaign against administrative incapacity, against swindling and cheating, against drunkenness and uncleanliness, against hunger, squalor and misery. "Hear, hear," is Paul's comment; "this should be England's war." His tastes were extremely simple. He disliked luxurious modes of living, and really enjoyed roughing it. During his twenty-seven months in the Army he never uttered a complaint as to the conditions; discomfort and hardship seemed only to heighten his cheerfulness. He was a non-smoker, and virtually a teetotaller, but in France, when pure drinking water was unobtainable, he used to take wine at dinner. Though he set no store on money, he was so frugal in habit and spent so little on himself that he always had money at his command. Giving was a joy to him. Blest with perfect health, he was not absent from duty through indisposition for a single day in his two years' campaigning.

Paul had in eminent degree the gift of personality. There was something magnetic about him, and in any company he compelled attention. His whole being conveyed an impression of exuberant energy. Strength of will, serenity and good temper were expressed in his countenance. Wherever he went he attracted responsibility to himself. Sometimes the burden assigned to him was uncongenial; none the less, he would shoulder it manfully.

Except for the defect of short sight he was a splendid example of the mens sana in corpore sano. On one occasion, in 1911, returning from a visit to Canterbury Cathedral, we had as fellow-passenger in the train a medical practitioner of the old school with whom my wife and I had an agreeable conversation. I noted that from time to time he was closely observing Paul, then a boy of fifteen. Presently he asked him to stand up, passed his hands over his back and shoulders, tapped his chest, and noted his big bare knees. "Heavens!" exclaimed the old doctor, "what a magnificent boy! He will grow to be a glorious man. I have never seen such physique or such vitality." This expert opinion was borne out by our son's physical growth in the next three years. Athletic exercises assisted in the development of a physique that was naturally strong. In his nineteenth year he was six feet in height, and measured thirty-nine inches round the chest. He had exceptionally broad shoulders. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh weighed on the sinewy, supple frame. There was about him the fragrance, radiant vitality and ease of poise that are characteristic of the athlete in the pink of condition.

Though moulded on a big scale, he was very alert in movement, and had an easy swinging carriage. The head was large, hair rich and abundant, complexion fair, the face round and full, forehead high and spacious, cheeks ruddy with the glow of health, the mouth firm and kind, revealing when he smiled a perfect set of teeth; the aspect bold and noble; grey eyes shone like stars behind his gold-rimmed glasses. A smile of enchanting sweetness often played about the strong, handsome face. His voice had a caressing note; his laugh was loud, hearty and musical. Thanks to his abounding health, neither appetite nor sleep ever failed him. He had only to place his head on the pillow and sleep came to him on the instant, and he would not stir for eight or nine hours. As an infant he often slept twenty hours a day. This precious gift of sleep remained with him to the end; and in a letter to me in June, 1917, he humorously remarked that though not far away at the time, he slept undisturbed by the earth-rending explosion that preceded our capture of the Messines Ridge. His outstanding characteristic was massiveness—he was massive in physique, in intellect, in character. He had the ingenuous simplicity that is often associated with a big physical frame. In him a modest, unpretending nature was linked to a great soul. In judgment he was very sagacious, and for all his idealism there was a shrewd practical side to him. A boyish zest remained to the last one of his principal characteristics.

In the winter of 1916 we moved into a new house which my wife planned with special regard to the tastes of our two boys. Alas for these fond plannings! Paul never saw our new home, never worked in the pleasant library arranged specially for him, never entered the cosy little room garnished with his athletic trophies and adorned with those engravings of Beethoven and Wagner which he so much loved. His last visit home was in May, 1916. He declined leave at the end of 1916 from a fear that if he took it he might lose the opportunity of transferring from the A.S.C. The same spirit of devotion made him, when he was appointed to the Tank Corps, elect to be trained in France, instead of coming to England. I think that at last he almost dreaded taking leave lest a visit home might weaken his resolve to walk the sacrificial road. It was only after his death that we learnt from his brother officers in the 2nd Cavalry Brigade that he had often told them he was convinced he would not survive the War. That conviction seemed only to strengthen his determination to get into the fighting-line. A voice within told him his place was in the heart of the combat and he obeyed its monition with joyful alacrity. From the time he joined the Tank Corps a sort of divine content filled his soul.