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In 1915, possibly because he was then writing Far Off Things and was in a mood reminiscent, Arthur Machen declared that he had failed in the art of literature. Most good writers have felt, at one time or another, a similar sense of failure—or at least of mild frustration. Presumably they have a particular instance in mind, certainly Machen had his. It was simply because his tale of the Bowmen had been accepted as truth.
Now it may seem to many a triumph of art that one’s work is held to be so life-like and so real that it is generally accepted as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Our realists, for example, are said to feel that way. They consider the verdict of veracity the highest critical success. They have mirrored life and that, so help them, was what they had set out to do!
Machen felt differently about it. His invention, his creation, was not only accepted as being true, but his inventiveness and creativeness were denied him. His magic had been judged mere journalism and that, to Machen, or to any other creative artist, meant failure. However this may be, Machen did not fail in his other legends of the war. Possibly because he called some of them legends—perhaps because the public felt their “willing suspension of disbelief” already supported too great a load—at any rate Machen’s further inventions were permitted to remain inventions and he was accorded a considerable, if not fanatical, amount of praise.
These other tales, The Soldier’s Rest, The Monstrance, The Dazzling Light, had in them the very elements that should have appealed to those who make legends of inventions. They offered much in the way of tradition blended with mysticism, a mixture that should have drawn credence from a much less tradition-loving people than the British. Perhaps there was too much mysticism in these tales—anything less subtle than a warrior saint might not appeal to the Church Militant.
But surely Drake’s Drum, or the tale called Munitions of War had the stuff of legend in them, and tradition too. Layed on, as a matter of fact, with the trowel. Drake’s Drum should have become one of the glorious legends of the sea-girt Britons, the race of mariners. This is the tale that relates the events that took place off Scapa Flow, when the British Navy awaited the German High Fleet in November, 1918 to accept their surrender. There were rumours that the Germans might possibly fight and the crews of the British ships stood at “Battle Stations.” Then, as the first German ship appeared through the mist, a drum began to beat in the “Royal Oak.” And it beat and it rolled from then until the entire German Fleet was encircled and helpless. Of course the unauthorized drumming was investigated, but with all hands at Battle Stations, and especially upon such a momentous occasion, it was hardly possible, and highly improper, that there might be anyone aboard ship with the time and the inclination to beat a drum. However, neither drum nor drummer were located and there was no choice but to believe that what everyone had been hearing was Drake’s Drum—“the audible manifestation of the spirit of the Great Sea Captain, present at this hour of tremendous victory of Britain on the Sea.”
Now this is certainly a tale that should have appealed to the Britons, as indeed it did, but they refused to raise it to the status of a legend. Then too, the story appeared in 1919, by which time England had less urgent need of legends. In any case, the perfidious Teutons had by that time scuttled their ships at Scapa Flow.
Munitions of War, a story published in 1915, also has the stuff of legend, but somehow it never caught, never quite made the grade. Oh, it was successful enough as a story, but it never became a legend. Which, on the whole, pleased its creator. It tells of a traveller who went to a seaport in the West of England and how he was awakened in the night to hear vast oaths and burly voices heaving and ho-ing as they loaded ships. The language used by these stevedores had an other-century quality and the watcher in the night could only conclude that these men had loaded Nelson’s ships before Trafalgar. Had this story been written in 1942 or 1943 instead of 1915 it might have been printed in the “Welders and Steam-Fitters Gazette,” or some other house organ, and it may even have been legendized by England’s defense workers and winners of the coveted “E” award—or its British equivalent.