[IV]
August 10, 1910
I am back in Chagford again after ten of the best days I can remember. Camp was one continuous round of sheer joy. The weather was good: they gave us plenty of work to do; I learnt an immense amount of soldiering and I have become quite as keen as any of them.
O'Connor, our O.C., has recommended me for a commission and I go into barracks at the Depot in Exeter next week. I had no idea that life under canvas could be so good. To be woken after a dreamless sleep at five on a perfect summer morning, to open the tent-flaps and look out on the gorgeous woods of the Pennings and then to dash up and have an icy shower-bath before first parade, to come in to breakfast with an appetite as keen as that of a baby, to spend the greater part of the day in the open air, washing up, cleaning the tent and my uniform, or running about as a scout searching for information, to shout rowdy songs in company with a couple of thousand other spirits as healthy and care-free as oneself, to gossip in the lines as the light gradually dwindles away at night, and last of all to be sung to sleep by the bugle's "last post" and "lights out," in short to live as man should live, in a sort of half-savage, wholly healthy way like this is one delirious dream. I loved every minute of it. Would that it could have continued for a hundred instead of ten days. The boys in my tent treated me exactly as one of themselves. I was ordered about by my section commander just like any other private; in fact, I was privileged enough to be taken by everybody just as a private, as if there were no Radchester and this was all. It was just one glorious "rag": the fight for food and drink as orderly of the day, the hustle to get everything cleared up in time for parade, the deadly funk lest one's buttons should not pass muster at the inspection, the fear lest one should do the wrong thing in close order drill on parade, and so bring ridicule down on the school or oneself from the tyrannical sergeants who bullied us into shape, everything was thoroughly good and I loved it.
It is very quiet and tame at Chagford after that strenuous time, but I have never before realized how precious a thing a hot bath was, or clean sheets and a comfortable bed, and entire liberty with regard to the way in which one spends one's day. Chagford is becoming my home, my refuge from the world. Betty and Thomasin even came as far as Moretonhampstead in the motor-bus to meet me. I could have hugged them both for this. They were disappointed not to see Illingworth and it was hard to account for his absence. I said that he had gone to Switzerland to complete his education. I miss him even more here than I did at school. We sang all the old songs to-night and I read some more stories out of "The Arabian Nights." It is hard to imagine that three months have passed since I was last here. The village, they tell me, is crowded: all the summer visitors are now here. I don't like to hear that—I am jealous of my find. I don't like hordes of Londoners prying into my favourite nooks. I shall find banana-skins and orange-pips on the Wallabrook to-morrow, and probably the way to Cranmere will be indicated by a long succession of paper bags and bits of discarded bun.
I wish I could describe the fascination of the moor. As soon as I got to Exeter I saw the blue hills in the distance with their quaint, craggy tors, and my heart leaped within me. I wanted to get out of the train and run to greet them. By the time that we had climbed out of Newton to Bovey I was racing from side to side of the carriage to glut my eyes with the rich sights which met my eye wherever I looked, the white-washed cottages, the prosperous farms, the rookeries, the rock-strewn streams, the thick woods, the riot of many-coloured flowers, the red loam and real green fields—how different these from the poor parched pastures of Radchester; the square squat church towers, the tapering spires, the big mansions of the squirearchy, the slow plodding farm labourers in the winding lanes, the myriad animals squatting, running, flying, chasing and being chased; everything spoke to me of home and then at last at Moretonhampstead to be met by such dear creatures as Betty and Thomasin: my cup of happiness was indeed full.
August 21, 1910
I am to go back to Chagford as soon as I have finished my military training here in order to coach young Willoughby (whose brother was at New College with me last year) for Woolwich. He said that he didn't mind where he went and so he fell in at once with my suggestion of Chagford. I am not altogether liking life in barracks after my wild and free week at Chagford. There I got up when I liked, ordered what I liked for meals, was waited on hand and foot by Betty and Thomasin, lazed by the side of the Teign and bathed at frequent intervals in a deep pool which nobody knew of, far from all inquisitive eyes, and trapesed about the moor to my heart's content every day. I took a heap of books but except in the kitchen at nights, when I read aloud, I never had any temptation to open them. After the strenuous life of camp I was only too glad of the opportunity to meander and gossip. Life seems to move very slowly in these Devon villages. No one seems to have been married or to have died since I was last here: the same girls serve in the same shops, the same men occupy the same seats in the bar parlour at "The Half-Moon" and "The Goat and Boy"; the only change is the influx of visitors attired in immaculate flannels, who get excited because their copy of the Times "was not sent up at the usual time to-day."
Thank Heaven, I've only got to endure ten days more of this: I am not overfond of the officers. They resent my presence, I think, because I am not a pukka soldier: I never could be—I have not O'Connor's temperament. There is such an amazing amount of ritual and ceremony about the mess. There's not much to do except to drink and read the papers, and "get up" the parts of the "rifle," which bore me. The Sergeant-Major has taken me under his wing and given me tips preparatory to my exam., but I'm not so grateful as I ought to be. Every morning I go out on first parade, usually in a parlous funk about my clothes. Do I wear a sword or not? Whom exactly am I expected to salute? What are my duties? Everything is hazy: there is nothing definite laid down and frequently I loiter about all the morning only to find that I am not wanted. Most of the senior officers seem to spend their time filling up papers in the orderly room. In the afternoons they go off and play tennis or fish, and I am left to my own devices until dinner, which meal I am expected to attend. I have explored the city, which is an attractive one. The inhabitants are sleepy, but extraordinarily healthy-looking and rubicund of hue: the girls almost uncannily pretty.