Here I am on the eve of being operated on. I wish it could be postponed for a bit. There seems to be the chance of civil war in Ireland, and the row in the Balkans looks like spreading. Elspeth and I are thinking of going to Scotland when I am convalescent, but I should like to cross over to Ireland and see really what is happening. We really have treated Ireland throughout the ages damnably. I wonder what will come of it all. I have finished correcting all my examination papers, and done my reports, added up my marks, and now all is over. Elspeth has been kindness itself to me lately; there is no doubt of the depth of our love for each other. I have been making a will, which seems silly because I don't leave much; about £150 worth of debts, and £1000 to pay them with from my insurance. Of course there'll be the furniture, but that's not much of an heirloom. I have had several horrible qualms about death, but, good heavens! it's no good worrying. I wonder whether Elspeth will marry again. After all, it won't matter to me when I'm gone. This is a silly way to talk. This has been a rotten day. I have said good-bye to a few boys, packed up what I shall want for the nursing home, a volume of Chesterton and a volume of Stevenson. I bicycled up to the golf links to say good-bye to the country that I have now so learnt to love; and after tea, in a bowler hat and "going-away" suit and suit-case, I walked up to the nursing home. It's a rotten game doing all this in cold blood. Elspeth stayed with me in my room, which is clean, comfortable, and faces south, until the nurse turned her out. I am now left alone, and Elspeth isn't to be allowed to see me until after the operation. It was agonizing parting from her, and I dread the night. I haven't slept for a very long time decently, and I certainly don't expect to to-night. I've been allowed as a special concession to finish writing up my diary to date. It seems all very futile now. I've made jolly little of my life. I've loved a few boys, taught a few of them something, taught a great many nothing. I have irritated some very good people by giving publicity to ill-considered judgments, and I have given of my all to one girl; I live in and for and by Elspeth alone. She is the whole of life to me. God grant that we may be spared to one another and learn to be truly and always happy together.
[XVI]
September 17, 1914
Even now I can't realize it: I went into that nursing home on a beautiful peaceful evening in July with nothing more important to worry about than my silly old appendix, and somehow while I was lying low and not worrying the entire world seems to have changed. I came in thinking that it might be exciting to go to Ireland, because there was a chance of a slight "scrap," and I come out and find the whole world in a death-struggle. It is like some hideous nightmare. I suppose war must have come upon most people as a surprise, a bomb-shell, but for me it has come as all part of another existence. My life is now divided into two parts, before I went into the nursing home, and after.
I was operated on quite successfully, though the doctor took two hours to cut out my appendix and I recovered fairly quickly, though I quite made up my mind that I was at the point of death hourly. My father and mother came down to see me and were awfully good, but Elspeth after a few days took a holiday because she was so "run down." I felt miserable without her, but she was quite right to go. I must have been getting on her nerves badly. The first news I got about the war was on a certain morning when I looked out of my window and saw in the place where I expected to see the summer circus a whole troop of yeomanry and their horses. Then my doctor went away to join up.
I had to lie in bed and hear the most amazing stories. First the banks all closed down and everybody thought that there was going to be no money, then people began to fill their cellars with foodstuffs, then day after day came more horrible news of disasters, of Germany breaking through Mons and overrunning Belgium, of the wonderful defence put up by the handful of English troops; gradually it seemed as if the war was already over, that Paris would fall and England be invaded. Horrible stories of atrocities in Belgium I can't understand. All the Germans I've known were dear old Koenig at Radchester, fat old bald-headed tourists at Lynton, sweating horribly as they climbed the hills behind the coach, and three ripping flappers at Oxford years ago. Somehow I had never imagined such a war as this to be possible. I remember now that night at Radchester three years ago when that War Office man came down and implored us to make the O.T.C. as smart as we could because we should be needed in a few years. I had plenty of time lying on my back for three weeks in that nursing home to think it all out. I had heaps of visitors bringing flowers and fruit and papers, but I was restless and miserable none the less.
As soon as I was able I went up to Bath and took Elspeth to Ilfracombe: there I heard Hemmerde calling for recruits—it was just like Amyas Leigh asking for another generation of Devon lads to help to beat the Spaniards. All the same it's different now. All the glamour and glory of war seem to have gone for ever: this is simply horrible, a massacre by machinery. Perhaps my mind is not attuned to it. I am still very weak, but the whole business seems preposterous.
We went down to Portsmouth to see some friends who had just joined up and we saw the troopships, the searchlights at night, the coast defences, the trains full of cheering soldiers, the streets full of raw recruits. We went on to London and there were posters like advertisements for soap imploring every man to join up and save his country. Girls presented white feathers to any one in mufti, people in trains invariably asked each other fiercely why they weren't in khaki. By far the most violent of these interrogators were peaceful-looking old ladies and young, healthy parsons. I went down to Hampton Court to stay with Tony, who, of course, has gone into the Army. All Radchester was in camp at Aldershot when war broke out and the entire school went en bloc to try to enlist. Those who were refused are crying with anger at the thought that they will have to go back to Radchester next term. There was some talk of the schools all being closed down. All the young masters on the staff at Marlton have gone, and every boy of eighteen and over and many a good deal younger. They needn't complain that the Public Schools aren't doing their part. Every single fit man in them joined at once. I wish I hadn't had my appendix out: then I could have gone. Elspeth says I couldn't, because of my incipient madness. I bet I would, though it would have been Hell to have left her. How I should have gloried in this war before I became engaged. All the Radcastrians are greatly "bucked" about it. At last adventure has come to them with arms full.