The Human Boy and the War Part 12

"Because this is the very identical Tommy I was always seeing in my dreams--the very identical one!"

I hadn't thought of that, but somehow taken it for granted. Then he pointed out it wasn't in the least a thing to take for granted, but the purest miracle that ever happened in the memory of man, and quite beyond human power to explain it in the world.

I said there might be people in the world who could, but he wouldn't hear of such a thing. He said:

"No--not in this world; but no doubt there are in the next."

And I said:

"Then you'll have to wait."

And he said:

"It's done one thing; it's quite decided me about my future. I'm going to be a clergyman."

And I said:

"Not if your voice doesn't crack, surely?"

"My voice!" answered Percy minimus with great scorn. "What is a voice compared to a miracle? If miracles happen to you, then, if you've got any proper feeling, you ought to insist on being a clergyman."

So I suppose he will be. But whatever else he is--even if he rises to be a Canon or a Bishop--he'll always be a maniac, the same as his brothers.

THE PRIZE POEM

Things were beastly dull at Merivale when we went back after the Christmas holidays, and I believe even the Doctor felt it. Of course, from our point of view, his life must always be deadly, but I suppose he gets a certain amount of feeble excitement into it, in ways not known to us. It's rather interesting to wonder what old people do find worth doing; yet they must do something to amuse themselves, off and on, or they'd go mad, I should think, which they seldom do. The amus.e.m.e.nts of a very old person must be rather weird, yet they clearly like to be alive, for when my grandmother died, she was eighty--a time of life when you'd think there was simply nothing left. Yet, when I went to say farewell to her, she told me she hoped to see the spring flowers once more. She didn't; but it shows how fearfully hard-up old people must be for amus.e.m.e.nt of any kind; for who on earth would want to see flowers, spring or otherwise, if practically everything else had not been lost to them? Myself I would much rather have died years before than eat the food my grandmother ate, and never go out except in a bath-chair; but she found it good enough, strange to say. So, no doubt, Dr. Dunston, who is entirely active, and can eat meat and drink wine and walk rapidly about, still finds being Head of Merivale School all right.

But the winter term was deadly, what with the bad weather and the slow progress of the War, and losing most of our football matches, owing to having a very weak team.

Then old Peac.o.c.k, of all men--the new master, I mean--got an idea, and Fortescue thought it was a good one, and Peac.o.c.k proposed it to the Doctor, and Dr. Dunston agreed to it.

In fact, he announced it after chapel during the third week of February in these words:

"Our new friend, Mr. Peac.o.c.k, has made a proposal to me, and I have great pleasure not only in agreeing with him, but in congratulating him on a very happy thought. Suspecting that there may be mute, inglorious Miltons amongst us--a sanguine hope I cannot share--Mr. Peac.o.c.k has thought that it would add an interest to the term and wake a measure of enthusiasm and energy in the ranks of our versifiers if we initiate a compet.i.tion. He suggests a prize poem upon the subject of the War; and while my heart misgives me, yet I bow to Mr. Peac.o.c.k's generous proposal. You are invited, one and all of you, from the greatest to the least, to write a prize poem on the subject of the War, and if such a momentous theme fails to produce some notable addition to our war poetry, then Mr. Peac.o.c.k's disappointment will be considerable. He trusts you to enter upon this task in no light spirit, and when I add that Mr. Peac.o.c.k proposes to give a prize of one guinea--twenty-one shillings--to the victorious poet, you will see that a real effort is needed. You will have a calendar month to prepare and execute your verses, which must be composed outside the regular school hours; and I may tell you that unless a certain humble standard of intelligence and poetic ability is reached, I shall direct Mr. Peac.o.c.k to withhold his prize."

Well, there it was; and, of course, a good deal of excitement occurred, and it was jolly interesting to see who entered for the prize poem and who did not. No doubt Travers major would have won it without an effort, being so keen about everything to do with war; but, luckily for the rest, he had left to go to Woolwich the term before. Travers minor entered because he was strongly advised to, being a flier at literature in general and keen about poetry; but he said frankly he should not praise the War, but slate it, because he utterly disagreed with it and hated war in general.

Of course, the prize being a guinea made a lot of difference, and many unexpected chaps decided to write a prize poem, though most of these, when they sat down with pens and ink to do it, found such a thing quite beyond them in every way.

I myself--my name is Abbott--was one of these, and after reading a good many real poems of the War, which Mr. Fortescue, who was a great poet and much interested in the compet.i.tion, kindly lent me, I found, on setting out to do it, that the difficulties were far too great. Rhymes are easy enough to get, in a way, but when you come to string the poem together, you generally find your rhymes aren't solemn enough. I believe I could have written a screamily funny prize poem; but, of course, that wouldn't have pleased the Doctor, or Peac.o.c.k either, so it wasn't any good wasting time being funny. For instance, I wrote the following poem in less than ten minutes:

The Hun, the Hun, the footling Hun, Most certainly doth take the bun.

And Blades and several other chaps said it was jolly good. But Blades, who had also had a shot or two on the quiet, was like me--he could only make comic poems, and the stanzas of his poem took the form of Limericks. He said he could invent them with the greatest ease--in cla.s.s, or at prayers, or at meals, or going to bed, or getting up, or in his bath--in fact, at any time when he wasn't playing football. He gave me an example, which seemed to me so frightfully good that I thought very likely Peac.o.c.k would have given him a consolation prize. So he tried it on Peac.o.c.k; but Mr. Peac.o.c.k thought nothing of it, and said that was not at all the spirit of a prize poem, but belonged to the gutter-press, whatever that is. It ran like this:

The Kaiser set off for Paree As if it was only a spree, But old French's Army, It soon knocked him barmy, And now he is melancolee.

He next had a flutter at Nancy, Though doubtless a little bit chancy; But his men got a doing, With plenty more brewing, So he galloped off, saying, "Just fancy!"

There were hundreds more verses--in fact, you might say the whole history of the War as far as it had got; and I advised Blades to send it to _The Times_--to buck it up--or _Punch_, or something; but he wouldn't, and when Peac.o.c.k decided it was no use, he gave up writing it, so a good poem was lost, in my opinion.

Many fell out before the appointed day for sending in the prize poems; but many did not, and though it was natural that a good few chaps chucked it, the extraordinary thing was the number of chaps who kept on to the bitter end, so to speak, and sent in poems. Almost the most amazing was Mitch.e.l.l. He certainly had made a rude poem once in a moment of rage, but as to real poetry, a cabbage might just as well have tried to make a poem as him. He was only keen about one thing in the world, and that was money; and, of course, that was why he entered the compet.i.tion. He said to me: "I'd do much worse things than make a prize poem, if anybody offered me a guinea. If it had been one of the Doctor's wretched prizes, I wouldn't have attempted it; but a guinea is a guinea, and as n.o.body here can make poetry for nuts, I'm just as likely to bring it off as anybody else. It's taking a risk, in a way, but I've got my ideas about the War, just as much as Travers minor or Sutherland, and, if I don't win, I shall get a bit of fun out of it, anyway."

He was a mean beast always, but cunning and frightfully crafty; and as he had never had a decent idea in his life, let alone a poetical one, we were all frightfully interested in Mitch.e.l.l's poem on the War.

The chap Sutherland he had mentioned was regarded as having a chance, for he knew a lot about the War, and had two cousins in it, one in France and one with the Fleet. He got letters without stamps on them from these chaps, but there was never much in them. Thwaites also entered, and he was known to write poetry and send it home; but it had not been seen, and Thwaites, being delicate and rather fond of art and playing the piano and such like piffle, we didn't regard him as having warlike ideas. Besides, once, when Blades suddenly pulled out one of his teeth in cla.s.s and bled freely over Thwaites, who sat next to him, Thwaites fainted at the sight of blood; which showed he couldn't possibly write anything worth mentioning on such a fearful subject as war; because, you may say, a war is blood or nothing.

Only one absolute kid entered, and this was Percy minimus, who had sent a Christmas pudding to the Front, and had the photograph of a "Tommy"

back. So he wrote a prize poem which he let his friends see, and Forbes minimus said it was good, as far as he could say to the contrary. No doubt it appeared so to a squirt like Forbes minimus, but, of course, it could not be supposed to stand against the work of Travers minor, or Sutherland, or Rice.

I always rather thought myself that Rice might pull it off, being Irish and a great fighter by nature. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything whatever about poetry; yet his fighting instinct made him enter, and though he wasn't likely to rhyme very well, or look after the scanning and the feet and the spondees and dactyls, and all that mess, which, no doubt, would count, yet I hoped that, for simple warlike dash, Rice might bring it off. I asked him about it, and he said a good many things had gone wrong with it, but here and there were bits that might save it.

He said:

"I believe I shall either win the guinea right bang off, or get flogged." Which interested me fearfully, but didn't surprise me, because it was rather the way with Rice to rush at a thing head-long and come out top--or bottom. He only really kept cool and patient and never ran risks when he was fighting; but at everything else, which he considered less important, he just dashed. He had dashed at the prize poem--very different from Tracey, who was always cool about everything, and wouldn't have gone to the Front himself for a thousand pounds.

Tracey was great at satire--in fact, satire was a natural gift with him--and though, of course, it didn't always come off, owing to being so satirical that n.o.body saw it, still he often did get in a nasty one; and sometimes got licked for doing so.

He told me his prize poem was all pure satire, and I said:

"I doubt if the Doctor or Peac.o.c.k will see it."

And Tracey said:

"I can't help that. Poetry is art, and I can't alter my great feeling for satire to please them. It will come out; and even though old Dunston and Peac.o.c.k don't see it, I know jolly well the Kaiser and the Crown Prince would, if they read it."

Well, there it was, and that was about the lot worth mentioning who had a shot at Mr. Peac.o.c.k's guinea. The calendar month pa.s.sed, and one day, when cla.s.ses began, the Doctor appeared, supported by Peac.o.c.k, Fortescue, and Brown.

Everybody was summoned into the chapel, and the Doctor, who dearly likes a flare-up of this kind, told us that the prize poems had been judged and were going to be read.

"I may tell you," he said, "that the prize has been won, contrary to my fear that none would prove worthy of it. But we are agreed that there is a copy of verses on the solemn subject set for discussion that disgraces neither the writer nor Merivale. Indeed, I will go further than that, and declare that one poem reflects no small credit on the youthful poet responsible for it; and Mr. Peac.o.c.k and Mr. Fortescue, than whom you shall find no more acute and critical judges, share my own pleasure at the effusion."

The Doctor then began to read the prize poems, and he started with that of Percy minimus, much to Percy's confusion.

"The views of Percy minimus on the War are elementary, as we should expect from a youth of his years," said old Dunston. "I may remark, however, that he rhymes with great accuracy, and if he shows an inclination to be didactic, and even give Lord Kitchener a hint or two, I frankly pardon him for the sake of his concluding line. This reveals in Percy minimus a flash of elevated feeling which does him infinite credit. One can only hope that his pious aspiration will be echoed by those great nations doomed to defeat in the appalling catastrophe which they have provoked."

Then he gave us the poem.

THE WAR

BY PERCY MINIMUS

War is a very fearful thing, I'm sure you'll all agree, But sometimes we have got to fight in order to be free.

The Germans want to slaughter us, and do not understand We are a people famed in fight, and also good and grand.