THE RUM JAR
AND OTHER SOLDIER SUPERSTITIONS
The most notable feature in the famous history of the "Angels of Mons" was the fact that hundreds of practical, unpoetical, and stolid English soldiers came forward and testified to having seen the vision. Whether the story were fact or fancy, it is an excellent example of a change in our national character.
Before the war, the unromantic Englishman who thought he saw a vision would have blamed in turn his eyesight, his digestion, his sobriety, and his sanity before he allowed that he had anything to do with the supernatural. He now tells, without the least semblance of a blush, that he puts his faith in superstitions, and charms, and mascots, and that his lucky sign has saved his life on half a dozen occasions.
Of all the many and weird superstitions that exist in the British Army of to-day, the most popular has to do with the jar that contains the ration of rum. Rumour has it that once, long ago, a party that was bringing up rations for a company in the trenches was tempted by the thought of a good drink, and fell. When all the rum had been consumed the question arose as to how to explain matters, and the genius of the party suggested breaking the jar and pretending that it had been hit by a bullet. When the party filed into the trench, the waiting company was shown the handle of the jar, and had to listen to a vivid tale of how a German bullet that had just missed Private Hawkes had wasted all the company's rum. Rumour also has it that the unsteady gait of one member of the party gave the lie to the story—but this is beside the point.
From this little incident there has sprung up a far-reaching superstition—German bullets, the men have it, swerve instinctively towards the nearest rum jar. A few stray shots have helped to strengthen the belief, and the conviction holds firm down nearly the whole length of the British line that the man who carries the rum jar runs a double risk of being hit.
Mascots and talismans hold an important place in the soldier's life. I know of one man who used to carry in his pack a rosary that he had picked up in one of the streets of Ypres. One day his leg was fractured in two places by a large piece of a trench-mortar bomb, but, in spite of his pain, he refused to be taken down to the dressing station until we had hunted through his pack and found him his rosary. "If I don't take it with me," he said, "I'll get 'it again on the way down."
And this is by no means an isolated example. Nearly every man at the front has a mascot of some sort—a rosary, a black cat, a German button, or a weird sign—which is supposed to keep him safe.
Their superstitions, too, are many in number. One man is convinced that he will be killed on a Friday; another man would rather waste a dry—and therefore valuable—match than light three cigarettes with it; another will think himself lucky if he can see a cow on his way up to the trenches; a fourth will face any danger, volunteer for any patrol, go through the worst attack without a qualm, simply because he "has got a feeling he will come through unhurt." And he generally does, too.
I once had a servant who used to wear a shoe button on a piece of string round his neck. At some village billet in France a tiny girl had given it him as a present, and he treasured it as carefully as a diamond merchant would treasure the great Koh-i-noor stone—in fact, I am convinced that he often went without washing just to avoid the risk of loss in taking it off and putting it on again. To you in England it seems ridiculous that a man should hope to preserve his life by wearing a shoe button on a piece of string. But then, you have not seen the strange tricks that Fate will play with lives. You have not watched how often a shell will burst in a group of men, kill one outright, and leave the others untouched; you have not joked with a friend one moment and knelt by him to catch his dying words the next; you have not stood at night by a hastily dug grave and wondered, as you mumbled a few half-remembered prayers, why the comrade who is lying there on a waterproof sheet should have been killed while you are left unhurt.