War Letters of a Public-School Boy

by Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

I've been pretty busy with my brigade work recently, though to nothing like the degree of November and the first fortnight of December. One meets strange types of humanity on this sort of duty. You can divide the countryfolk round these parts into three lots: (a) The farmers—on the whole honest, but decidedly avaricious; the French farmer's one fear in life is that his neighbour across the way is being paid at a higher price than he himself. (b) The average merchant, who is on the lookout for making a bit in all sorts of illegal ways, such as cheating us by underweight. (c) The honest middlemen, who, I regret to say, are few and far between. As far as possible we always try to deal with the farmers direct, as they are fairly honest, though very obstinate. An honest middleman is very useful, but there are not many of him. Business difficulties are increased by the extraordinary accent in which the country people hereabouts talk. Sometimes even French interpreters find themselves at a loss. I am getting into it famously, and can even speak with the local accent myself, to a certain extent.

Did you see that my old colleague, E. C. Cartwright, has got the M.C.? His reports of 1st XV matches in Evans's year were the feature of The Alleynian, as were poor Edkins's reports in the year of my own captaincy. Also J. P. Jordan, another O.A., well known to me, has won the M.C.

I am delighted that the Old Man (Mr. A. H. Gilkes) has received the living of St. Mary Magdalene at Oxford. He could, I am sure, have never had an appointment more to his tastes—barring, indeed, his mastership at his beloved Dulwich. As a headmaster he was a gigantic character; of that there can be no doubt whatever.

January 28th, 1917.

No news yet of my application for transfer. But people "in the know" tell me that it is only a question of time. The document having been approved and recommended by all the necessary authorities is, I presume, now wandering through the multifarious ramifications of the maze of Army offices, but I am told it will soon filter down. One thing that pleases me is an assurance that the A.S.C. authorities, whatever may have happened in the past, are not this time blocking my transfer. From your knowledge of my weaknesses, you will no doubt have guessed that I'm on pins these days—the period of waiting for the result of an exam., even if you think you've passed, is always a trying one. It is especially so for me on account of my absurdly impatient temperament. I fear that leave is out of the question till the transfer is settled one way or the other.

The cold weather now prevalent must add yet a fresh discomfort to those that are being endured by our men in the trenches. I cannot recollect a cold spell of such severity continuing for so long a time. We had a heavy snowfall a fortnight back, and since then there has been incessant and exceptionally hard frost. The roads in places are wellnigh impassable owing to frozen snow. Going down one steep hill to-day in our motor-car we all but turned completely over, as at a curve in the road the car-wheels, instead of answering to the steering gear, skidded on the frozen surface, and the car swung completely round on its axis, finishing by facing the opposite way to that in which we were travelling. Where the roads are not very slippery they are as hard as iron. A curious result is that you have a thick dust raised over a snow-covered landscape and in bitterly cold weather!

I was much interested in the Balliol College pamphlet and the Master's accompanying letter. Balliol appears to have done even more than its part in the War. Did you see that the Brakenbury Scholarship in History for 1916 was taken by a chap from Gresham School, Holt? I often wonder whether I shall ever go up to Oxford. Almost needless to say, to go there would be the crowning joy of my life, but I cannot help thinking that circumstances will render it impossible. Still, we will hope for the best. One thing I mean to do after the War is to learn Russian thoroughly and to visit Russia. I am not at all sure that travelling is not the best of all Universities. The great disadvantage of a 'Varsity is the insularity of mind which it is apt to breed. Its rigid observance of ancient customs, its cult of "form," the fact that it is the almost exclusive monopoly of the rich, the aristocracy and the upper middle-class; above all, its contempt for the learning of modern times and studied disregard of modern languages—all these features help to make the 'Varsity as insular as the most insular of all English national institutions. On the other hand, by its genuine intellectuality, by its cult of the beautiful and the abstract, by its scorn of the sordid business side of modern civilisation, by its enthusiasm for athletics and by its traditions of duty and of patriotism, the 'Varsity remains, to my mind, one of the most healthful influences in modern British life.

Talking of English insularity, it is curious to note how the Englishman makes his progress abroad. He is so insular that instead of learning the language and adopting the customs of the country he is in, he makes the indigenous population adopt his! He does not, for example, know much French, but he has evolved a sort of patois—much nearer English than French—that enables the inhabitants to understand him and comprehend what he wants.

I have recently been reading another of John Buchan's, called "Greenmantle." If you haven't read it, get it. It is just as good as Buchan's other books, rich in mystery and scintillating with adventure. It deals with this War and the experiences of Richard Hannay (whom you will recollect as the hero of the "Thirty-nine Steps," and who has since become a Major and got wounded at Loos) in his efforts, eventually crowned with success, to crush a German plot—this plot being the working up of a "Jehad," or Holy War among the Mohammedans, and so provoking a rising of Islam against the British. A thoroughly live story, told with great spirit.

I have also read H. G. Wells's war novel, "Mr. Britling Sees It Through." It is undeniably clever, though not to my mind up to the level of Wells's very best. It rather gives the impression in parts of having been written by the mile and then lengths cut off as required. He has one very good touch, the realisation of the impersonal and indiscriminate nature of the War: it claims as victims both Mr. Britling's own son and the young German who had been living with them before the War. The book concludes with a letter from Britling to the German boy's father, attempting to find some way out of the blackness. As usual with Wells, the best feature of the novel is the way in which he expresses the point of view of the average man. He has the trick of recording reflections in a sort of staccato style, with gaps here and there—just the way that one does think. There is some rot in the book, but on the whole it is very good and well worth reading.