But some good men went West—some of the best.
Horses or men, the best must always go—
Jim, it's a mad-blind, lunatic, filthy show—
Destiny's pitch-and-toss made manifest.
I'm sick to death of it.
And yet—and yet
There's a hold somehow in this crazed eclipse
Of the normal orient—a hold that grips—
Nothing in life, I suppose, lacks credit and debt—
The battered brain may hanker for surcease,
But under the brain—its curious—there is peace.
Hold on a bit. Last leave I met a fellow
Who cornered me at the club and hiccupped crude
Optimist zeal and tub-worn platitude—
You know the sort. Slug-bellied, slushy, mellow.
He winked, and wagged his tubby hands, and spouted—
"Break through next time, old boy!" He knew, he knew—
The final trap was laid—the Hun was outed—
He'd had it straight from Jones at G.H.Q.—
And—"Then we'll see you sportsmen back at Dover
Covered with glory—sorry it's all over."
So I let fly. I fed the blaze with faggots—
Hinted that on the whole we liked the Hun—
Roughed out a sketch of charnel-heaps and maggots—
The side of war that isn't sport nor fun;
Flung a few phrases chosen from the camps
At itch-struck females dashing about in cars
To pose in sketchy frills at snide bazaars—
At fat old profiteers and statesmen's ramps—
Oh, yes! I piled it on. He loathed the pill,
And barged his way out, rosy round the gill.
But was the swine half-right? It sounds like bliss
To sleep serene o' nights without surmise
Of S.O.S. lights screaming to the skies,
Deep in the warmth of Blighty out of this—
It sounds like bliss to forget the dug-out's reeking,
The bitter fog in the eyes, the life on a thread,
The crazed crescendo of the mortars seeking
Half-callous living and the unheeding dead,
And drowse in everlasting furloughs, under
The placid roofs of peace-time.
Well, I wonder!
If we get through it—if the Immortals choose
To grant a span again, when this be ended,
Of ordered life, impenetrably fended
By small restraints and sanctions and taboos—
Shall the recovered cares and leisures grip
The flabbier soul, or shall desire return
Back to the dug-out's care-free comradeship
And battle-time's magnificent unconcern
For dim to-morrows? Shall we find, once more,
Peace has its surfeits too as well as War?
Not the drab shadows only we'll remember,
But all the colour there was—the browns and blues
Down the deep shaft of Flemish avenues;
The swaying harvests gold-drenched with September;
And frosty mornings in the Spring retreat
When the scrap opened out, and it was good
To choose a gun-park in the greening wheat
And pitch a hidden tent in Holnon Wood—
Jimmy, old son, it made the pulses dance
To see those Devon daffodils in France!
We shall recall the eager clank and jingle
Of gun-teams on the pavé, moving South,
The long off-saddle in the midday drouth,
"Feed" in the cowslips by the wayside dingle;
The journey's welcome end amid the cool
Clutter of sun-warmed barns and straggling pines;
The urgent fuss around the wagon-lines;
Sweat-roughened horses drinking at the pool—
And then the morning start, with head-chains ringing
Swinging along at ease, the drivers' singing....
And moments better still. I thank the gods
For one white, perfect hour at Conteville,
With Bosches massing on the nearer hill,
And open sights as near as makes no odds.
Young Grant was with us then. The boy was daft,
Blind to the snipers, yelling like the damned:
Oh, good! Oh, bloody good! at every waft
Of three-rounds-gunfire. Then left section jammed,
And back the buzzers' private signal rolled:
Sweat on it, chum! We've got the bastards cold!
Such memories blaze their imprint under the traces
Of darker records on the palimpsest.
The blacker the time the deeper bites the zest
Of sudden sunshine on the open spaces.
There's a rough justice fingering the scale
Where greater guerdons risk the longer price—
Hazard your neck, and savour your cakes and ale—
Seek Eden-fruit, and stake your Paradise.
For though smooth road's good going, Jim—a kiss
Snatched at the edge of Hell is tenfold bliss.
One thing is sure. This crazy round-about
Destroys the introspective attitude.
Action uproots the dreamy Hamlet-mood,
And blithely cuts the yellow throat of Doubt.
Your job is clear before you, catalogued
From dawn to dawn. You cannot miss the greens,
Slice as you will—the fairway lies undogged
By furtive may-be-sos and might-have-beens—
Flank unto flank no hesitation ghosts
The crude commands of Corps Direction-Posts.