A Student in Arms Part 12

This I trace to the simple comfort and naturalness of my old home.

II

SCHOOL

I went to a day school kept by Ronnie's father when I was nine.

At least, it was a day school for me; but nearly all the boys were boarders. I worked fairly hard, and got prizes. I was fairly good at cricket, and not much good at football. I had only one friend--Ronnie--and about two enemies, both of whom were day boys, and whom I should have liked to have fought if I had dared. My memories of the school are few. I best remember leaving home, and going back, and also playing cricket. Ronnie's father lives as a just and straightforward gentleman, who never caned a boy except for what was mean or dirty, and whom we all loved and respected. But then I have known and loved him and his wife all my life. If our house was a second home to Ronnie, theirs has always been a second home to me.

There was one master whom I liked, and who perhaps did something to develop my character. He was fond of poetry and history, and from him I learnt--an easy lesson for me--to love history; but what is more, he first gave me a glimmering idea, which was to develop long after, that the cla.s.sics are literature, and not torture.

I left there to go to Rugby.

Never did a boy enter Rugby with better chances. The memory of my three brothers still lived in the house. They had all achieved distinction in games, and been leading prefects (or sixths as they are called at Rugby) in the house. Many masters remembered them for good, particularly Jacky, the housemaster, who had loved them all, especially Hugh.

In addition to this, one of the leading fellows in the house, who was afterwards to be captain of the school fifteen and cricket eleven, lieutenant in the corps, and one of the racquet pair, had been at my private school. I shared a study with another fellow who had been at my private school. Two boys accompanied me from there, one of whom was my next best friend to Ronnie. His parents were in India, and he had spent some of his holidays with Ronnie and me.

But though I loved Rugby and was happy there, I can't say I was a success. I made few friends, who have since, with one exception, drifted out of my life. I was too timid to enjoy Rugger. I never achieved distinction at cricket. I got into the sixth my last term, but hadn't the force of character to enjoy the prefectural powers which that fact conferred upon me. The fact is that I left when I was 16, and it is between 16 and 18 that the full enjoyment of school life comes and boys reap the harvest they have sown. Had I stayed another year I should have belonged to the leading generation, strengthened my friendships and developed what was latent in my character. As it was, I left at an unfortunate age. I was pushed into the sixth a year before my contemporaries. My friendships were only half formed, and I had only just begun to feel strength of body and mind developing in me.

As a junior I was too conscientious, and not light-hearted enough.

I hardly had any adventures at Rugby, because I had an incurable instinct for keeping rules. I worked hard at mathematics and French, and my report generally read, "Good ability. Might exert himself more." At cla.s.sics and chemistry I did as little work as possible, and any report generally read, "Hard-working but not bright."

On the whole I think I was pretty happy at Rugby; but I never look back to my school days as the happiest part of my life. I have had many happier times since. But still, my house was a good one. Jacky, the housemaster, was wonderfully kind and wise. He hardly ever interfered with the affairs of the house, but left it all--in appearance--to the "Sixths." Actually, nothing escaped him. The tone of the house was on the whole extraordinarily clean and wholesome, and the fellows who had dirty minds were a small minority, and easily avoided. At all events, very little of that sort of thing reached me.

At sixteen and a half I went to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, commonly known as "the Shop." There I spent the two most miserable years of my life, and made the second of my great friendships. In these days the Shop was still a pretty rough place, and at the moment it was unusually full. I think there were over 300 fellows there altogether, and there were about 70 in my term. My first experience was unfortunate. I was interviewing the Adjutant, a keen sportsman and a bit of a tartar. He eyed me unfavourably, asked what games I could play, and when I replied that I had no great proficiency in any he commented, "Humph, a good-for-nothing!" and dismissed me.

I am by nature slow, stolid and clumsy. I was bad at being "smart"; I was slow and clumsy at drill; map making and geometrical drawing were physical impossibilities to me; I was incredibly slow and stupid at machinery, mechanism and electricity. The only subject which interested me was military history. In my first term I dropped from about forty-fourth to about seventieth in my cla.s.s, and I kept near the bottom until my fourth term, when I failed in my electricity exam., and had to stay one term more. In the same term I received a prize for the best essay on the lessons of the South African War.

Oh, the misery of those terms at Woolwich! I hated the work, the drill, the gym and even the riding school. I hated the officers, and above all I hated the spirit of the place. As far as I remember, the one eternal topic of conversation and subject of "wit" was the s.e.xual relation. Of course the boys had never been taught sensibly anything about it. Consequently the place was continually circulated with filthy books, pictures, stories, etc. When I went there I was extraordinarily innocent, and devoid of curiosity. I had been recently the more disposed to purity through the death of my mother. At Woolwich I remained extraordinarily innocent and uncurious, letting the poisonous stream flow continually by me, shrinking from its stench, and finding more and more relief in my own company. I must have been a very unpleasant person at that time.

One friend I had. He was a small, compact, keen, and capable little Rugbian named F----. He was like me in that he had recently lost his parents, and was interested in religion and philosophy in a boyish way. Unlike me he rather enjoyed Woolwich. He had a lot of friends, was keen on riding and on a good deal of the work, and generally speaking plunged into life, taking the rough with the smooth, and both in good part. Although we have drifted far apart in ideals and sympathies, and though misunderstanding has come in and destroyed our friendship, I shall never cease to be grateful for all that F---- did for me in those days. He routed me out when I was in the blues, laughed at me, cheered me up and made me look at life with new eyes.

Moreover he did this, as I know, in defiance of the set with whom he was friendly, who despised me for a milksop, and were at no pains to conceal the fact. But for F----, my life at the Shop would have been intolerable.

Besides him, I had a few a.s.sociates, boys with whom I naturally a.s.sociated for the simple reason that they, too, were left out of the main current of the life of the place. But they were not particularly congenial. One or two were hard workers. One was a great slacker, and more timid, physically and morally, than even I. He was a boy with a fatal facility for doing useless things moderately well, especially in the musical line. He was even more frightened of gym and horses than I was, and unlike me was not ashamed to show it. If the Shop was purgatory to me, it must have been h.e.l.l to him.

My happiest times were week-ends spent at home. I used to arrive on Sat.u.r.day evening and leave on Sunday evening. About now I began to get to know my father much better, and to develop my theological bent under his advice. In my disillusionment as to my capacity for military life I began to wish I had chosen the clerical profession. I think my father had the shrewdness to see that failure in one profession was not necessarily the sign of a "call" in another direction. Anyway, he did not discourage me; but spoke of five years in the Army as the best training for a parson.

I remember avowing my intention of becoming a parson to one of my more friendly acquaintances at the Shop, and he replied that I wouldn't set the Thames on fire, because I had such a monotonous voice.

In spite of seeking relief from my uncongenial surroundings in religion and theology, I did not join myself to any one else. There was a so-called "Pi Squad," or Bible cla.s.s, held weekly, but I only went once, and didn't like it. I was always peculiarly sensitive about priggishness in those who professed themselves to be religious openly, and generally thought I detected priggishness in any "Bible circle"

or similar inst.i.tution that I came across. I think my theology mainly consisted in speculations about the future state--I remember I emphatically declined to believe in h.e.l.l--and my religion consisted mainly in fairly regular attendance at Matins and Communion.

Another effect of the intensity with which I hated my surroundings was that I read a lot of good novels--George Eliot, the Brontes, Scott, d.i.c.kens, Jane Austen, Thackeray, Besant, etc. A book which I read over and over again was Arthur Benson's _Hill of Trouble, and other Stories_. Those legends, with their imaginative setting, charm of language and beautiful religious ideas were more restful to my unquiet spirit than anything else I read.

The actual conditions of life at the Shop were pretty barbaric. The aim was to make it as much like barracks as possible. Each term was housed in a different side of the square of buildings which form the Academy, and the fourth term were spread among the houses of the other terms as corporals. My first term I shared a room with three other fellows. I think it was the ugliest room I have ever lived in, without exception. It had high whitewashed brick walls. In each corner was a bed which folded up against the wall in the day time, and was concealed by a square of print curtains. There were a deal table, four windsor chairs, a shelf with four basins, and a cupboard with four lockers. All the woodwork was painted khaki. The contrast with the little study at Rugby, with its diamond-paned window, its matchboard panelling surmounted by a paper of one's own choosing, its ledge for photos and ornaments ("bim ledge" so called), its eggsh.e.l.l blue cupboards, baize curtains and window box, was striking.

It used to be the custom to go to and from the bathroom attired in a sponge, in connexion with which an amusing incident once happened.

A cadet in his second year was on the bathroom landing, when he perceived that the mother and sisters of another cadet were coming upstairs. From sounds in the bathroom he realized that they would meet a naked corporal just as they reached the landing. The door of the bathroom opened outwards, and with admirable presence of mind he rushed back, and putting his back against the door and his feet against the wall, imprisoned the corporal. The corporal, in the approved Shop version of Billingsgate, began to blaspheme at the top of his voice, so when the ladies reached the top of the stairs they saw a vision of a cadet with his feet to the wall and his back to a door singing at the top of his voice to drown a Commotion within!

On another occasion in my second year, when I was sharing a room with one other fellow, I had a sister to tea. On arriving in my room I found that my stablemate had been playing hockey, and was at the moment in the bathroom, having thoughtlessly left all his clothes in the room--mostly on the floor.

On the last day of my first term the corporals and officers were all absent at a farewell dinner to the former, and we received information that the third term were going to raid our house, with a view to "toshing" us in a cold bath. We therefore prepared for action. Every receptacle which would hold water was taken to the upper landing, full. Then all the chairs in the house were roped together, and placed on the stairs as an obstacle. The defenders then took up their position at the windows and at the top of the stairs. In due course the enemy's forces arrived, and stormed the stairs, under a heavy fire of water. The obstacle was at length destroyed, and a solid phalanx of wet bodies swarmed up the stairs. We formed a similar phalanx and charged to meet them. I happened to be first, and much to my discomfiture the enemy's phalanx parted in the middle, and I was rapidly pa.s.sed down the stairs--a prisoner! Fortunately at the bottom I found a relieving party from the next house, making a diversion on the enemy's rear. With great valour we dragged down a foe, and toshed him in the bath that had been made ready for us. "The tosher toshed!"

The next day we surveyed the damage. All the chairs and banisters were broken, the whitewash was rubbed off the bricks by wet shoulders and nearly all the basins were broken. That day was the day of Lord Roberts's half-yearly inspection!

There was not such another battle until my third term, when we were the aggressors. This time the damage was even greater, for the defenders let down tables across the stairs as an obstacle, and we battered our way through with scaffolding poles. There were some casualties that day, owing to an indiscriminate use of mop handles.

On the day of Lord Roberts's inspection we had to change from parade dress to gym dress, and it was during the change that Lord Roberts inspected our quarters. He went into one room and found a fellow just half-way through his change--with nothing at all on! The room was called to attention, and with great presence of mind the boy dashed into the bed curtains and stood to attention there, while Lord Roberts had an animated conversation with him!

There were jolly moments in the life at the Shop. On Sat.u.r.days, after dinner, the unfortunates who had not got away for the week-end used to have "stodges" after dinner. Having put away a substantial dinner, we changed into flannels, and used to crowd into some one's room, and eat m.u.f.fins and smoke cigars. I remember one night there were eighteen of us in one small room.

In order to go away for a week-end one had to obtain (1) an invitation, (2) permission from parent or guardian to accept the invitation. One week my brother, who was working at the Admiralty, offered his flat to myself and F----, as he was going to Brighton himself. Fleming wrote to his guardian--a Scotsman--for permission to stay with Captain Hankey. The guardian wrote back for more information. He saw by the Army List that Captain Hankey existed, but who were the Hankeys? etc., etc. F---- wrote back a furious letter, saying that he expected to have his friends accepted without question, and received the permission. We went. The awkward thing was that Captain Hankey was not there, and we shuddered to think of the rage of F----'s guardian if he should find out. Worse still, the guardian was supposed to be staying at the Oriental Club in Hanover Square, and my brother's flat was in Oxford Street! However, we didn't meet.

F---- and I neither of us knew London, and had the time of our lives.

We dined at Frascati's--a palace of splendour in our eyes--and went to His Majesty's to see Beerbohm Tree in Ulysses. When it came to Hades, we held each other's hands! On Sunday we went to St. Peter's, Vere Street, but were so furious at being kept waiting for pew holders long after service had commenced, that we went on to the Audley Street Chapel, a most queer little place. It was full of monuments to the dependents of peers, in which the peers figured very largely and the dependents fared humbly--the epitome of flunkeydom. Among these tablets was one inscribed--

"To John Wilkes, Friend of Liberty."

Truly refreshing!

We finished the day at some old friends of mine, and voted the week-end a huge success.

When I went to Woolwich I was just on the verge of getting keen on games and beginning to feel self-confident, and to enjoy the fellowship of my comrades. Woolwich nipped this in the bud. I left with no self-confidence, having renounced games, and with a sense of solitariness among my comrades. I was a misanthrope, and the unhappiest sort of egotist--the kind that dislikes himself. To say the truth, too, I was then, and always have been, a bit of a funk, physically, which didn't make me happier. On the other hand, I was an omnivorous reader of everything which did not concern my profession, and a dabbler in military history.

I have sometimes thought that I was unconsciously a bit of a hero at Woolwich, standing out for purity and religion in an atmosphere of filth and blasphemy. I have come to the conclusion, however, that there was nothing in this. As to the general atmosphere, there is no doubt that it was singularly pernicious; even the officers and instructors contributed their quota of filthy jokes, and there was no religious instruction or influence at all except the parade service at the garrison church on Sunday, if one happened not to be on leave. But as to my heroism I am reluctantly compelled to be sceptical. I went as far as I felt my inclination, and stopped after a time because instinct was too strong the other way.

As I have said before, I have always had an insurmountable instinct for keeping rules. At school I could never bring myself to transgress, although I knew that transgression was the road to adventure. So at the Shop, however much I may have wished to be in the swim, my instinct for the moral and religious code of home was too strong for me. It required no self-control to prevent myself from slipping into blasphemy and filth. On the contrary, in order to do so I should have had to violate my strongest instincts, and exercised a will to evil much stronger than any will power that I possessed at that time. If, when I left Woolwich, I was comparatively pure, it was because nature did not allow me to be anything else.

To say the truth, I have never felt the sway of pa.s.sions to anything like the same extent as most men seem to. I have never cared for the society of women for its s.e.xual attraction. Consequently all my women friends have been just the same to me as my men friends--friends whom I could talk to about the things that interested me.

I don't boast of this, I only state the fact. I am not proud of it because I know that some pa.s.sion is necessary to make heroes and even saints.

SOME NOTES ON THE FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY "HILDA"

I have before me as I write a pencil sketch, limned with considerable care, of a rather disagreeable looking young man, and beneath it is written--

"D.W.A.H., by Himself."

It is a profile. The eye has almost disappeared under the brow, the mouth is tightly closed to a degree that is quite unpleasant and there is a deliberate exaggeration of a slight defect he actually had--a tendency for the lower jaw to protrude a little. This little defect hardly any of his friends seem to have noticed, for most of them execrate it as a libel in the otherwise admittedly beautiful photograph at the beginning of this volume. The expression in the sketch is above all--dubious.

So did Donald see himself.

For the rest of us no doubt the lessons Mr. Haselden has for us in his caricatures, "ourselves as we see ourselves" and "as others see us,"

are necessary. But not for Donald. The drawing is pasted into an alb.u.m which contains mainly Oxford College groups, and there is a certain unpleasant resemblance between it and his full face presentment in one of the groups--in which he has "the group expression" rather badly.