The joys of the Coronation were not for us. Some of the Corps went down to London to line the streets, but the rest of us went into camp and had a gorgeous time. We spent the time bathing and washing up, and celebrating Coronation festivities in all the villages near by. We made speeches and helped to feed myriads of children: we led processions and drank vast quantities of liquid at other people's cost. Money seemed to be poured out in honour of George V.
All the same I was lonely because most of the boys I require by me to complete my happiness were in London lining the streets. However, we were not parted long and we are now just back from the Windsor Review. That is the most impressive ceremony in which I have ever taken part. All the Public Schools and Universities paraded before the King in Windsor Great Park. It was a sweltering hot day and we were as tired as could be after our long journey and the fatigue of camp, but no one fell out or fainted except some of the Oxford and Cambridge contingents. Good for the schools! It was wonderful to get down south again, if only for one day, to see real trees, civilized people, pretty girls, the Thames, respectable houses built for comfort, culture and leisure. We spent all the long hours in the train in rushing up and down the corridors "debagging" people, "scrumming" forty or fifty unfortunates into one carriage and then leaping on the top of them. No wonder we were tired. How any windows remained unbroken is a miracle to me.
We have had a good term with regard to the Corps—about four of the best field-days I can remember. The best was in Wensleydale amid peerless scenery: about ten big schools took part, and I, as usual, was engaged in scouting most of the time. It is rare fun stalking the enemy on these lonely moors far from your own people. With a little imagination you can picture the reality ... and in any case it's a rotten game to be captured by some other school. I don't know why, but after you've left the school about ten minutes you feel as if you'd been soldiering all your life and lived only for food and sleep. No meals are more acceptable than field-day lunches, usually eaten by the side of a dusty road in the full glare of a hot sun, but it's hunger that makes the meal, and marching is the best appetizer I know: the only thing I object to about these sham fights is the powwow afterwards and the stupidity of the umpires. Every one knows that umpires can't be everywhere at once and human nature doesn't admit of one's giving oneself up unless real force is used; consequently the most ridiculous decisions are given, for the conditions have always altered by the time any umpire turns up; the weaker side which has been ambushed becomes reinforced by a body ten times as big as the ambushing party, and so turns the tables, and the clever strategist who really brought off a good coup finds himself a prisoner and harangued by his O.C. Field-days are very unfair, but they are amusing. It's rare fun chasing an enemy into a farm-house and forcing an entrance into every room in pursuit of him: it's good to see a motor-bicycle belonging to some officer lying by the roadside and to ride away on it. It's worth any amount of powwow to sit under a hedge within sight of a bridge on which you have chalked "This bridge is blown up," and watch the enemy debate whether or no they have a right to advance across it: it's very like the real thing to be told off to act as guerillas and to keep on irritating an advancing force by appearing at inconvenient times and unexpected places, and holding up their plans and then trying to escape and repeat the experiment farther along the line. Close order drill, ceremonial and inspection are distinctly boring, but field-days are red-letter days.
For twelve hours one gets right away, away from work, away from Common Room, away from games, and it does every one a world of good. We lose our petty animosities: we become more broad-minded and regain our ordinary sense of camaraderie: we sing ribald songs, we fill our lungs with good air, we discuss philosophy or any mortal thing with our next-door neighbour on the march, not caring whether he listens or not; we silently form good resolutions about our work, we think upon great days long past, of famous runs with the beagles, childhood's days on the moor, tramps across country as undergraduates—all the best things of life come back to one on the march. It isn't that we take soldiering very seriously: none of us does that. I hate shooting on the range; rifle-firing frightens me; I should be a damned fool at pukka fighting, but this make-believe is good sport and I suppose it teaches us something. At any rate it's amusing.
One of the quaintest things about this term has been my friendship with Chichester. He is a new boy in my form who speaks but seldom, not because he is nervous (he is one of the most self-assured people I ever met) but because he doesn't want to. He writes already bizarre but quite original verse. He goes his own way in everything. He somehow became attracted by me, and now we spend all our spare time together. It's a queer friendship. He's a largish boy for fifteen, with curly light hair and penetrating blue eyes and a delicate pink and white complexion.
We lie on a rug together and watch House matches, eating strawberries and cherries. He borrows all my books and reads them at an astonishing rate. Masefield bowled him over completely. He has written at least four poems based on "The Everlasting Mercy." He is about the cleanest child I have met and yet he employs the foulest metaphors I ever came across. He is an anomaly. He is in for a bad time here: people won't understand him and every one will do his best to ruin him.
He appears to be quite fond of me and calls for me daily to go down to games with him. Common Room is scandalized and I have been warned by most of my colleagues that such things are not done. It is not good for a boy to be taken up and made a favourite of by a master. With that sentiment I entirely agree. I wonder why every one here does it. But I'm not making a favourite of him: he has honoured me with his friendship. I have no fast, firm friend; neither has he. He certainly is not the type of boy to trade upon such a relationship; in form he works like a "navvy," he plays his games adequately: he is quite normal except for his gift for writing English. Surely no one can blame me for fostering that.
At any rate I should prefer to leave rather than break off our relations, so people must just talk and think what they like. Of course the school doesn't like it. They hate any boy having much to do with a master, but Chichester has a will of his own and I rather fancy he will take his own line right through life. Not that he is self-assertive: he is quiet and unassuming, but he always contrives to get his own way. Luckily for me he is in Wade's house, and dear old Wade, who ought to have been a country squire, never denies any one anything; so when the boy goes for leave to come to my rooms he gets it every time without a murmur.
The only blow about camp this year is that Chichester won't be there. His people are taking him abroad for the whole of August.
I have been bothered a good deal lately about a peculiarly silly habit of mine. Sometimes, in mathematics especially, I get violently angry at intervals because I realize that my sets are not working hard enough. I so rarely punish that of course there is a temptation for boys to slack in present circumstances: when I find that they take advantage of my ideals to practise this trick on me I usually "give tongue" forcibly and "drop on" them as heavily as I can with a quite colossal punishment. This I take down in a book and—after five minutes I've forgotten all about it. The boy always looks contrite at the moment, but I realize that he knows that he won't have to do the punishment at all.