THE RIGOR OF THE GAME
Elmsdale at war is very like Elmsdale in peace. At least, that was Martin’s first impression when he and General Grant motored to the village from York on a day in September, 1915. Father and son had passed unscathed through the hellfire of Loos, General Grant in command of a brigade, and Martin a captain in a Kitchener battalion. They were in England on leave now, the middle-aged general for five days, and the youthful captain for ten, and the purpose of this joint home-coming was Martin’s marriage.
When it became evident that the world struggle would last years rather than months, General Grant and the vicar put their heads together, metaphorically speaking, since the connecting link was the field post-office, and arranged a war wedding. Why should the young people wait? they argued. Every consideration pointed the other way. With Martin wedded to Elsie, legal formalities as to Bolland’s and the general’s estate could be completed, and if Heaven blessed the union with children the continuity of two old families would be assured.
So, to Martin’s intense surprise, he was called to the telephone one Saturday morning in the trenches and told that he had better hand over his company to the senior subaltern as speedily as might be, since his ten days’ leave began on the Monday, such being the amiable device by which commanding officers permit juniors to reach Blighty before an all-too-brief respite from the business of killing Germans begins officially.
He met his father at Boulogne, and there learnt that which he had only suspected hitherto: he and Elsie were booked for an immediate honeymoon on a Scottish moor—at Cairn-corrie, to be exact. By chance the two travelers ran into Frank Beckett-Smythe, a gunner lieutenant in London, and he undertook to rush north that night to act as “best man.” Father and son caught a train early on Sunday and hired a car at York, Elmsdale having no railway facilities on the day of rest.
They arrived in time to attend the evening service at the parish church, to which, mirabile dictu, John and Martha Bolland accompanied them. The war has broken down many barriers, but few things have crumbled to ruin more speedily than the walls of prejudice and sectarian futilities which separated the many phases of religious thought in Britain.
The church, with its small graveyard, stood in the center of the village, and the Grants had to wring scores of friendly hands before they and the others walked to the vicarage for supper. Martin and Elsie contrived to extricate themselves from the crowd slightly in advance of the older people. They felt absurdly shy. They were wandering in dreamland.
Early next morning Martin strolled into the village. He wanted to stir the sluggish current of enlistment, for England was then making a final effort to maintain her army on a voluntary basis. Elmsdale was so unchanged outwardly that he marveled. He hardly realized that it could not well be otherwise. He had seen so many French hamlets torn by war that the snug content of this sheltered nook in rural Yorkshire was almost uncanny by contrast. The very familiarity of the scene formed its strangest element. Its sights, its sounds, its homely voices, were novel to the senses of one whose normal surroundings were the abominations of war. Here were trim houses and well-filled stockyards, smiling orchards and cattle grazing in green pastures. Everywhere was peace. He was the only man in uniform, until Sergeant Benson appeared in the doorway of a cottage and saluted. The village had its own liveries—the corduroys of the carpenter, redolent of oil and turpentine, the tied-up trouser legs of the laborer, the blacksmith’s leather apron, ragged and burnt, a true Vulcan’s robe, the shoemaker’s, shiny with the stropping of knives and seamed with cobbler’s wax. The panoply of Mars looked singularly out of place in this Sleepy Hollow.
But, by degrees, he began to miss things. There were no young men in the fields. All the horses had gone, save the yearlings and those too old for the hard work of artillery and transport. He questioned Benson and found that little Elmsdale had not escaped the levy laid on the rest of Europe. Jim Bates was in the Yorkshire Regiment. Tommy Beadlam’s white head was resting forever in a destroyed trench at Ypres. Tom Chandler had fallen at Gallipoli. Evelyn Atkinson was a nurse, and her two sisters were “in munitions” at Leeds. Yes, there were some shirkers, but not many. For the most part, they were hidden in the moorland farms. “T’ captain” would remember Georgie Jackson? Well, he was one of the stand-backs—wouldn’t go till he was fetched. The village girls made his life a misery, so he “hired” at the Broad Ings, miles away in the depths of the moor. One night about a month ago one of those “d—d Zeppelines” dropped a bomb on the heather, which caught fire. A second, following a murder trail to Newcastle, saw the resultant blaze and dropped twelve bombs. A third, believing that real damage was being done, flung out its whole cargo of twenty-nine bombs.
“So, now, sir,” grinned Benson, “there’s a fine lot o’ pot-holes i’ t’ moor. Georgie was badly scairt. He saw the three Zepps, an’ t’ bombs fell all over t’ farm. Next mornin’ he f’und three sheep banged te bits. An’ what d’ye think? He went straight te Whitby an’ ’listed. He hez a bunch o’ singed wool in his pocket, an’ sweers he’ll mak’ some Jarman eat it.”