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Page 44
"Napoleon was right," observed a small, red-haired lance-corporal, whose
remarks generally had a sardonic touch, "when he said the worse the man
the better the soldier. It's only people who have no imagination and no
intelligence who are courageous in modern war. Nobody with any sense
would expose himself unnecessarily and rush a machine-gun position or do
the sort of thing they give you a V.C. for. Of course, there are a few
cases where it's deserved, and it isn't always the one who deserves it
that gets it. I'm quite certain the refined, sensitive, imaginative kind
of man is no good as a soldier. He may be able to control himself better
than the others at first--educated people are used to self-control--but
in the long run his nerves will give way sooner. Moral courage is a
thing I admire more than anything, but there's no use for it in the
army, in fact it's worse than useless in the army. The man who's too
servile to be capable of feeling humiliation and too stupid to
understand what danger is--that's the man who makes a good, steady
soldier. We've seen men so horribly smashed up by bombs that it makes
you sick to look at them, and then people expect us not to be afraid of
air-raids. The civvies haven't seen that sort of thing, so they may well
show plenty of pluck, although I believe there are a good many with
enough imagination to have the wind up when there's an air-raid on."
"Bloody true. You know, if there was a lot o' civvies an' a lot of
Tommies in a Blighty air-raid, I reckon the civvies'd show more pluck
than the Tommies. My mate who's workin' on munitions told me 'e saw
'underds o' soldiers rushin' to take shelter in the last raid on London.
O' course there was crowds o' civvies doin' the same, but 'e says there
was a lot what didn't seem to care a damn. The other day we 'ad a bloody
parson spoutin' to us--'e said war brings out a man's pluck an' makes an
'ero of 'im. I reckon that's all bloody tosh! War makes cowards of yer,
that's the 'ole truth o' the matter, I don't care what yer say. I didn't
know what fear was afore I joined the army. I know now, you bet! I'm a
bloody coward now--I don't mind admittin' it. There's things I used ter
do what I wouldn't dare do now. When we go up the line I'm in a blue
funk from the time I 'ears the first shell burst to the time we goes
over the top. An' when we goes over I forgets everythink an' don't know
what I'm doin'. P'raps I'll get a V.C. some day wi'out knowin' what I
done ter get it. And I'm not the only one like that. Anyone 'oo's bin
out 'ere a few months an' says 'e ain't windy up the line's a bloody
liar, there now...."
"By the way," I interrupted, "how did that orderly who works in the
theatre get his Military Medal--he had the wind up more than any of us
the other night?"
"I know whom you mean," answered a private of the R.A.M.C. "He got it
that bombing-stunt a few months ago. It was bloody awful too--the worst
thing I've ever been in. I was standing next to him when the first one
exploded. He flopped down and lay flat on the ground, but I rushed away
into the fields with a lot of others. When it was all over we went back
and heard the wounded crying out in a way that was dreadful to hear.
This fellow was still lying on the ground by the duckboards, trembling
all over and paralysed with fear. We went to help the wounded, but he
was in such a state that he could not come with us, so we left him
behind. There was an inquiry afterwards and _we_ got into a frightful
row for running away. He got the M.M. for sticking to his post!"
VII
THE GERMAN PUSH
"What madness there is in this arithmetic that counts men by the
millions like grains of corn in a bushel.... A newspaper has just
written about an encounter with the enemy: 'Our losses were
insignificant, one dead and five wounded.' It would be interesting
to know for whom these losses are insignificant? For the one who
was killed?... If he were to rise from his grave, would he think
the loss 'insignificant'? If only he could think of everything from
the very beginning, of his childhood, his family, his beloved wife,
and how he went to the war and how, seized by the most conflicting
thoughts and emotions, he felt afraid, and how it all ended in
death and horror.... But they try to convince us that 'our losses
are insignificant.' Think of it, godless writer! Go to your master
the Devil with your clever arithmetic.... How this man revolts
me--may the Devil take him!"
(ANDREYEFF.)
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