"One never can tell." This is a world of change, and anything beyond the limits of the most fertile imagination may happen to anyone, anywhere, at any moment.
Were I a bellicose Bellamy, I might incline towards "Looking backwards" from the standpoint of a hundred years hence, and thus, posing as a special of 1991, might sigh for the shortcomings of the past, and picture myself crossing, on an aërial machine, the erst dark Continent (now lit by electric light) at a pace which would have even shattered the nerves of the driver of an old Brighton express—"a ponderous steam conveyance which, a hundred years ago, succeeded the stage coach." Again, I might suppose myself sending sketches or despatches from remote battlefields by means of "the electric communicator," a coil carried in one's portmanteau, and which, by a simple mechanical arrangement—one end being secured at the office of your newspaper in Fleet-street or the Strand—unwinds as you travel, so that, wherever the fates have destined you to go, you may be in immediate communication with the editor of the journal you represent; nay, more, the electric current passing through your pen or pencil, simultaneously producing copy or sketches with a corresponding pen or pencil at the other end. I say, were I a sort of bellicose Bellamy, I might compare the possible perfection of the future with the shortcomings of to-day; but then, you see, I'm not, and, though quite content to admit that "one never can tell," I'm still more disposed in these "Anecdotes of the War-path," by sticking to the practical present, to convey some idea of the doings of correspondents at the front.
To begin with, an iron constitution is the best basis on which to build up the war special, whose gifts with pen or pencil will depend entirely on the diplomacy he possesses by means of which to get to the front himself, and, at the same time, keep sufficiently in touch with the rear, to be in perpetual communication with his own headquarters at home.
I remember how one, otherwise most brilliant Special, whose talent won for him a reputation which he continues to enjoy, came utterly to grief through want of that tact which enabled others, during the siege of Plevna, to get their articles and sketches through. Between the slowly, very slowly contracting girdle of Muscovite steel which encircled that place and the Danube, there was a perfectly free communication. The historic bridge of boats was crossed without difficulty, and, Roumania being thus reached, one was in direct, uninterrupted correspondence with the street beloved of Doctor Johnson. The Special in question, however, being assured by suave, courteous, and in many cases English-speaking officers, that the Russian Bear was the soul of honour, and the Russian field-post the most convenient mode of conveyance, put his despatches into the military post bags at Plevna. Then, "with a smile that was childlike and bland," did those Muscovite postal authorities receive them, stamp them officially—and—well, they were never seen again! Thus was a most daring Special, possessed of marvellous talent (I will not say if with pen or pencil) recalled to England, and, in that capacity, lost to the world. He lacked a diplomatic faculty, without which success is impossible to the war correspondent.
A case of a camp-kettle, too, comes vividly back to me, in which a man delayed his departure from London for three days in consequence of some fad about a peculiar commodity of this kind which was being specially made for him, and this when Europe was ablaze with war. Through that confounded camp-kettle he might lose the key to the position, yet the tinker came in facile princeps and that knight of the pen was nowhere. Happily, however, "fads" very seldom get to the front at all, or, if they do, change front themselves soon after their arrival.
It seems to me that the man who would win his spurs on the war-path must, by being ready to start at any moment, accept the inevitable in the light of "Kismit," and be prepared to turn circumstances, good, bad, or indifferent, to the best account possible; he will meet with fewer difficulties, and be better able to cope with those he does experience.
By the way, were you ever shadowed? The sensation, novel to begin with, is trying in the long run, and infinitely less endurable than being made prisoner of war, pure and simple.
I had this experience shortly after the entry of the Versailles troops into shattered, still burning, Paris.
My wandering propensities and the notes I from time to time made led to my being so persecuted that I would have done much to change places with Peter Schimmel, of shadowless fame. I think my nose, which, in polite society, might be called retroussé, must have suggested the tip-tilted organ of the typical Teuton, and that hence suspicions of fresh complications were aroused. Suffice it to say I was shadowed by a hawk-eyed, hook nosed, beetle-browed, oily-looking, parchment-faced being, who seemed, by his very pertinacity, becoming my second self. I hurried from place to place in quest of incident, the pattering feet of my shadow—if I may so put it—announced his presence everywhere. I mounted an omnibus, and there was a double ascent up those spiral steps which led to the roof, that hawk-eyed shade was seated either by my side or with his back to me. In the evening I strolled down, say, the Boulevard des Capucines, while, with measured tread, smoking a cigarette the while, I was followed by the oily one; in short, through the many occupations of my life he was ever in my wake, till at last release came.
I was arrested and taken before the Commissary of Police, when it was discovered I had been mistaken for somebody else, and, with many apologies and regrets that I was not the rogue I might have been, I was released, my shadow being "unhooked," so to speak. And now, oddly enough, I had a morbid satisfaction in remembering the wild-goose chases I had taken that Government spy—up one street, down another, away into the suburbs of Paris, back to its centre, only to repeat the dose when I had time, till, more attenuated and cadaverous than ever, that hawk-eyed minion of the law could barely drag one leg after another. Strange as it may seem, when rid of him, I missed him, missed him awfully, I assure you; feeling quite lonely and incomplete without him, and should have been almost pleased to have had him tacked on again.