‘Yes, sir,’ replied the adjutant.
CHAPTER IV.
WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT.
No doubt our military dons believed that after drill we swotted Haking, Needham, Infantry Training, and Stonewall Jackson, not forgetting Notes from the Front, and all the pamphlets on soldiers’ bunions, number nine pills, &c. We certainly did swot—when they were looking or moving around. But a cadet’s day is a strenuous day. From 6 A.M. to 4 P.M. running, drilling, lectures, and physical jerks feed up the best of men, and we were glad to leave shop and gather together round the fire. There we unbared our souls, and made no bones about it. Army life is an open life, a much manlier life than even the public school. There’s no beastly fagging, no ‘bloods,’ but a universal hate of the prig and the prude. War is a wonderful leveller. And at this school there was a regular mix up of breeds and classes.
These men were all tried men. They had fought the Boche. Some had the M.M. or the D.C.M. There were butchers and bakers, jockeys, bookies, honours men, and backwoods adventurers. They were the cream of courage, but—excepting Billy Greens—not the soul of the Church. Fighting-men are really primitive. They have seen life—and tasted it. Women and wine had passed their way. For all that, they were not sickly neurotics, revelling in literary slime. They could tell a yarn, of course, but that was no evidence of decadence or softness. Men who can beat the Boche are not soft-bottomed sultans. They were hard as flint, yet as gentle as babes.
In my own hut there were many characters. Ginger Thomson, for example—the queer beggar who wouldn’t wash. But he had the M.M., as well as the French Military Medal, and a brilliant record at Oxford. He entertained us when he dissected our professors, and it was good to hear him cross swords with Billy Greens, the ex-parson. Greens hadn’t the chest of a hen, but he was the Church militant. He was a plucky little devil, and if any man interfered with his evening devotions, Greens would get up and fight. Nobby Clarke was a howling Radical lawyer, inclined to argue the point; while Tosher Johnson was a Canadian cow-puncher. There were others, not forgetting Beefy Jones, the lustiest beggar who ever carried a gun. So, when gathered round, we were interesting. One night we discussed religion.
‘Men can’t be intellectual and godly, old chap,’ declared Ginger. ‘If you want us all to sing psalms and chant “Holy, Holy,” you’ll have to close the schools and breed us like heifers and hogs. To be a Rationalist, one need not be a morality-wrecker. Many unbelievers are clean—cleaner than those who attend communion on Sunday and break all the Commandments on Monday. Clean up the Church, and I’ll be a parson.’
‘How can we clean it up, when you’re destroying any little good we can do?’ exclaimed Billy Greens. ‘We’re not supermen—we’re human. We can’t perform miracles; and I’ll tell you this, old chap, religion is a bulwark for the poor, the sick, and the blind. Destroy the Church and you’ll destroy the last shreds of public decency and restraint. Your doctrine will plunge us into the moral laxity of the Huns. We’re fighting for God in this war, and that’s why I’m in. I loathe the whole armour, but I won’t throw it off till we rid the world of this canker and curse. This is a holy war.’