Tommy Part 9

Tom blushed as he replied, "Would you like to see my report, sir?" and he took it from his tunic proudly.

"Why, Tom, this is splendid!" I said, after reading it.

"Ay, I have worked fair hard at it," said Tom; "but my difficulty is getting my tongue round the words. You see, they don't know how to p.r.o.nounce, these French people, and you have to p.r.o.nounce their way else they wouldn't understand what you wur saying, and you have to get a grip on it or you can't understand what they are saying. I can conjugate the verbs," added Tom proudly, "but when they speak to me in French, that's anything like a long sentence, I get mixed up. While I'm getting hold of the first part of what they're saying, I forget the rest; but I will master it. What a French chap can learn a Lancashire chap can.

"Do you know, sir," went on Tom, "that the Y.M.C.A. has got no less than six huts here; each of them will hold a thousand men, and they are jam-full every night. And all the workers are so friendly too."

"And do you go to any religious services, Tom?" I asked.

"I been to two or three," replied Tom, "but I don't hold much wi'

religion. Still they're grand people, and you may ask any man in the camp, from the sergeant-major down to the newest recruit, and they will all tell you the same thing, The Y.M.C.A. is a fair G.o.d-send to us."

I found out afterwards that Alec McPhail had not followed Tom's example. Alec had discovered a wayside public-house about a mile from the camp, where he and several others of his companions spent most of their spare time.

"I'm noan religious," said Tom rather boastfully; "but the Y.M.C.A.

showed me that I was making a fool of myself, and they have made me see that a soldier ought to be a gentleman. We're not a lot of riff-raff in the Army; we have come at the call of our King and Country to do our bit. And what I say is that a chap ought to live up to his job; we have got a big, grand job, and we chaps as is to do it ought to be worthy of our job."

Tom wrote regularly to Polly Powell during the time he was in the Surrey camp, although he could not help noticing that Polly's replies grew less and less frequent and less and less affectionate. When he had been there a little more than two months he received a letter from his mother telling him that Polly was walking out regularly with Jim Dixon. The letter from Tom's mother was characteristic.

"Dear Tom," she wrote, "thou'st been fooled by Polly Powell. I always said that Alice Lister was too good for thee, and thou used to get vexed about it. A man is not to blame for his mother, he can't choose her, so I can't blame thee for thy mother, but he is to be blamed for his wife; he makes his own choice there, and the man as chooses Polly Powell is a fool. When I wur a la.s.s I lived on a farm, I wur only sixteen when I came to Brunford, and the farmer I lived wi' always said when he was buying a cow, 'be sure to look at the stock before you close the bargin.' Look at the stock Polly Powell has come from. I say nowt about her feyther because I don't know him, but I have seen her mother, and that's enough for me. Polly is just the image of what her mother was when she was her age. She's only twenty-four years older than Polly, but she's like Bethesda Chapel, she's broader nor she's long. That's what Polly will be in twenty years' time. Her mother's got a mustash too, and Polly gives every sign of having one by the time she's her mother's age. Besides, she's a flighty thing is Polly, and has no stayin' power; she goes wi' one chap one week and another the next. She's walked out wi' seven chaps since you left Brunford, and she only took up wi' Jim Dixon again because he's making a bit of bra.s.s. I daresay she'll tell you that she's only larking wi'

Jim, and is true to you all the time; but if I were thee I'd sack her.

There are plenty of la.s.ses everywhere, and thou can do better nor her.

"I expect you will be going to France soon, and will be fighting them Germans. If they find thee as hard to deal wi' as I have, they'll have a tough job. But they are a bad lot, and I don't ask you to show 'em any mercy.

"Your affectionate mother, "MRS. MARTHA POLLARD.

"P.S.--Be sure to write and give Polly Powell the sack right away, she's noan thy sort. If you come across that German Emperor, don't be soft-hearted wi' 'im."

After Tom had read his mother's letter twice, he sat silent for some time. "So she's going out with Jim Dixon," he reflected; "well, I'm glad. After all, my liking for her was only top-water stuff, and she was doing me no good." The next minute Tom was whistling his way through the camp. "Yes," he continued, "mother's got what the writing chaps call 'a good literary style,' and she hits the bull's-eye every time. Gosh, what a fool I've been! Fancy giving up Alice Lister for a la.s.s like that. I wonder if it's true that Alice has took up wi' that parson chap. I'd like to wring his neck, I would for sure."

At the end of nearly three months Tom was moved to another camp still nearer the south coast. He had a presentiment that the time was not far distant when he would have to cross the sea, and know in real earnest what soldiering was like. In a way he was glad of this; like all youths he longed for excitement, and wanted to come to close grips with the thing he had set out to do. On the other hand however, he could not help looking forward with dread. When on reading the newspapers he saw long lists of casualties, and heard stories of the men he had known, who went out healthy and strong and never came back again, and others who were brought home maimed for life, he had a strange feeling at his heart, and a sinking at the pit of his stomach.

It was not that he felt afraid, but there was a kind of dread of the unknown. What would it be like to die?

"I hear we're off soon," said Alec McPhail to him one day.

"There's no telling," said Tom laconically.

"Ay, but we shall," replied Alec, "and I shall be glad, I'm getting sick of this life in the camps."

"I doan't wonder at it," said Tom.

"What micht ye mean by that?" asked the Scotchman.

"I am fair stalled wi' thee," said Tom. "I thought that you, being a thinking sort o' chap, would know better. You saw what a fool I was making of myself, and yet you kept on drinking and carousing, and making a ninny of yourself, as though you had no more brains nor a waterhen. Why, lad, with your education and cleverness, you might have been sergeant-major by now. Nay, nay, keep thee temper; I mean nowt wrong."

The Scotchman looked at Tom angrily for some seconds. He seemed on the point of striking him, then mastering himself he said, "Ay, Tom, you're richt, and yet I'm no' sure."

"What do you mean?" asked Tom.

"Tom, man," said the Scotchman, "ye canna think worse of me than I think of mysel'. I had a good home too, and a G.o.dly mither; as for my father he was a hard man, but just, very just. Ay, I know I ought to have known better, but the whisky got hold of me. Besides----"

"Besides what?" asked Tom.

"Ay, man, I'm not a hero when it comes to facing death. I fancy I'm as brave as most men about lots of things, but I just shiver when I think o' dying; then I tak' a wee drap of whisky, and it gi'es me courage."

"Poor sort of courage," replied Tom; "besides, you take more than a 'wee drap,' as you call it."

"Ay, it needs mair and mair. But it's this way, Tom; when I think of going over the water into those trenches, and when I think of the sh.e.l.ls falling all around me; when I call to mind that men may be dying at my richt hand and on my left, blown all to smithereens, I get afraid, but after I have filled mysel' fou' of whisky I don't care. I know I ought to be ashamed of mysel'; I know, too, it's the wrang sort of courage. As for you, Tom, you have been wiser than me, you've got releegion."

"Nay, I've nowt o' th' sort," replied Tom, "I've just kept straight, that's all."

"But it's not enough, Tom," said the Scotchman.

"What does a' mean?" asked Tom.

"I mean that a man wants releegion," replied Alec very solemnly. "I have been a thinking lad all my life, and when I chucked releegion and professed to believe in Colonel Ingersoll I kenned fine I was making a fool of mysel'. It's either whisky or releegion to keep a man's courage up; that is, such a man as me."

"Then you think there's something after death?" said Tom.

"Ay, lad, I am sure of it. I'm a-thinking you're richt, Tom, in going to the Y.M.C.A. meetings, and I know you're wrang in not getting releegion. E'en when I'm fou' of whisky, I have known that releegion was necessary; and if I only had the strength I'd gi' up the whisky."

The next day the camp was in a great state of excitement; the men had received definite information that they were to start for the Front in two days' time. They did not know where they were going, but they were told it would be somewhere in France or Belgium. At first there was great cheering at this; the men shouted and boasted of what they would do when they were face to face with the Germans. After that, almost as if by prearrangement, a solemn silence fell among them; evidently they were thinking deeply. Some paid longer visits than usual to the wet canteen or public-houses; others, again, were seen walking alone as though they had no desire for company.

We who remain at home in safety, and talk about the heroism of the men going away to the Front, little realise the thoughts which pa.s.s through their minds. When the order to embark comes they don't say very much about it, and even when they do talk they speak of death almost lightly. "If I am potted," they say, "I am, and that's all about it."

But that's not all they feel, as I have reason to know. They love their lives just as much as we do, and they long to go back and spend their days amongst their loved ones. It is only rare that cowardice is seen, and it is rarer still for them to make any boast; the average Englishman is not given to boasting; he has his duty to do, and he just does it, saying very little about it.

On the night before they were to embark for France, farewell meetings were held at the Y.M.C.A. huts, and Tom noticed that Alec McPhail found his way to the hut where he went. Perhaps eight hundred or a thousand men had gathered, and although high spirits prevailed, each man felt that he was breathing an atmosphere which was not usual. There was a look not common in the eyes of the lads; a set, stern expression on their faces. Afterwards when they had been to the Front and returned, they would go out again without such feeling as now possessed them.

But these lads had never been to the war before; they were entering upon an unknown; they knew that in all probability a large number of them would never come back to England again. Each had a hope that he might escape, although the chances were against him.

Still they cheered at the old recitations, listened to the old songs, and joined in the choruses which they liked just as they had been doing for months; they were not going to show the white feather.

A special speaker had come to the hut that night. He had been working among the soldiers in the Y.M.C.A. tents on the Continent, and had come home for a short holiday; now he had come to this camp in order to speak to the men before their departure. It is said that months before he had been fond of telling humorous stories, and had delighted in making the soldiers laugh. He certainly had a sense of humour, and now and then could not refrain from some witticism which set the highly strung lads in roars of laughter. But the close of his address did not inspire mirth.

"My lads," he said, "you have done a brave thing; I don't say that you deserve much praise for it, because at a time like this if an able-bodied youth does not join the Army he fails in his duty; and you are only doing your duty. If you had not done what you have done, I should be ashamed of you. All the same you are brave lads. You have offered your all, your very lives, at the altar of duty. I am not going to try and describe to you what you will have to do, and possibly have to suffer; you will find out that soon enough. Possibly many of you are going to your death. I don't want to frighten you, but we have to face facts: I don't say it is an awful thing to die, but it is a tremendous thing. You know that you have souls as well as bodies. I am not going to argue it out with you; I needn't, because you know. I needn't try to prove to you that there is a G.o.d, because you know it, you feel it. There is no atheism out at the Front: some of you have tried to live without G.o.d, and you have made a mess of your lives. I tell you, my boys, it's a terrible thing to die without G.o.d. Some of you know what it is to believe in a personal Saviour; you have accepted Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d, who came on earth to die for us that we might know G.o.d; and you have found Him to be a strength in temptation, a joy in sorrow. My lads, you all want that Saviour, and especially do you want Him now. You are embarking on the Great Unknown, and you need a Captain, a Guide, a Saviour: I have come to tell you about Him."

I am not going to try to describe the close of his address. This man had seen hundreds die, he had come face to face with the great realities of life, of death, and of religion. He knew what he was talking about because he had experienced it, and he made the men feel what he felt. That night when the meeting was over Tom Pollard found himself again with Alec McPhail.

"That chap was fair earnest," said Tom.

"Ay," replied the Scotchman, "he went richt down to the bottom of things. Come wi' me to the canteen, lad, I feel I must have a drink."

"Not if I know it," said Tom, "no drink for me to-night."

But the Scotchman rushed away towards the canteen, and Tom, scarcely knowing what he was doing, followed him. When they entered, they saw a number of men standing there drinking.