III. GOD AS WE SEE HIM
For some time before I was wounded,
we had been in very hot places. We could scarcely expect them to be otherwise,
for we had put on show after show. A “show” in our language, I should explain,
has nothing in common with a theatrical performance, though it does not lack
drama. We make the term apply to any method of irritating the Hun, from a
trench raid to a big offensive. The Hun was decidedly annoyed. He had very good
reason. We were occupying the dugouts which he had spent two years in building
with French civilian labor. His U-boat threats had failed. He had offered us
the olive-branch, and his peace terms had been rejected with a peal of guns all
along the Western Front. He had shown his disapproval of us by paying
particular attention to our batteries; as a consequence, our shell dressings
were all used up, having gone out with the gentlemen on stretchers who were
contemplating a vacation in Blighty. We couldn't get enough to replace them.
There was a hitch somewhere. The demand for shell dressings exceeded the
supply. So I got on my horse one Sunday and, with my groom accompanying me,
rode into the back-country to see if I couldn't pick some up at various Field
Dressing Stations and Collecting Points.
In the course of my wanderings, I
came to a cathedral city. It was a city which was and still is beautiful,
despite the constant bombardments. The Huns had just finished hurling a few
more tons of explosives into it as my groom and I entered. The streets were
deserted; it might have been a city of the dead. There was no sound, except the
ringing iron of our horseshoes on the cobble pavement. Here and there we came
to what looked like a barricade which barred our progress; actually, it was the
piled up walls and rubbish of buildings which had collapsed. From cellars, now
and then, faces of women, children, and ancient men peered out—they were sharp
and pointed like rats. One's imagination went back five hundred
years—everything seemed medieval, short-lived, and brutal. This might have been
Limoges after the Black Prince had finished massacring its citizens, or it
might have been Paris, when the wolves came down and François Villon tried to
find lodging for the night.
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I
turned up through narrow alleys where grass was growing and found myself,
almost by accident, in a garden. It was a green and spacious garden, with
fifteen-foot walls about it and flowers which scattered themselves broadcast in
neglected riot. We dismounted and tied our horses. Wandering along its paths,
we came across little summer-houses, statues, fountains, and then, without any
hindrance, found ourselves in the nave of a fine cathedral which was roofed
only by the sky. Two years of the Huns had made it as much a ruin as Tintern
Abbey. Here, too, the flowers had intruded. They grew between graves in the
pavement and scrambled up the walls wherever they could find a foothold. At the
far end of this stretch of destruction stood the high altar, totally untouched
by the hurricane of shellfire. The saints were perched in their niches,
composed and stately. The Christ looked down from His cross, as he had done for
centuries, sweeping the length of splendid architecture with sad eyes. It
seemed a miracle that the altar had been spared when everything else had
fallen. A reason is given for its escape. Every Sabbath since the start of the
war, no matter how severe the bombardment, service has been held there. The
thin-faced women, rat-faced children, and ancient men have crept out from their
cellars and gathered about the priest; the lamp has been lit, the Host
uplifted. The Hun is aware of this; with malice aforethought, he lands shells
into the cathedral every Sunday to smash the altar. So far, he has failed. One
finds in this a symbol—that in the heart of the maelstrom of horror, which this
war has created, there is a quiet place where the lamp of gentleness and honor
is kept burning. The Hun will have to do a lot more shelling before he puts the
lamp of kindness out. From the polluted trenches of Vimy, the poppies spring
up, blazoning abroad in vivid scarlet the heroism of our lads' willing
sacrifice. All this April, high above the shouting of our guns, the larks sang
joyously. The scarlet of the poppies, the song of the larks, the lamp shining
on the altar are only external signs of the unconquerable, happy religion which
lies hidden in the hearts of our men. Their religion is the religion of heroism,
which they have learnt in the glory of the trenches.
There is a line from William Morris's Earthly Paradise which
used to haunt me, especially in the early days when I was first experiencing
what war really meant. Since returning for a brief time to where books are
accessible, I have looked up the quotation. It reads as follows:—
“Of Heaven
or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot
ease the burden of your fears
Or make
quick-coming death a little thing.”
It is the last line that makes me smile rather quietly, “Or make
quick-coming death a little thing.” I smile because the souls who wear khaki
have learnt to do just that. Morris goes on to say that all he can do to make
people happy is to tell them deathless stories about heroes who have passed
into the world of the imagination, and, because of that, are immune to death.
He calls himself “the idle singer of an empty day.” How typical he is of the
days before the war, when people had only pin-pricks to endure, and,
consequently, didn't exert themselves to be brave! A big sacrifice, which
bankrupts one's life, is always more bearable than the little inevitable
annoyances of sickness, disappointment, and dying in a bed. It's easier for
Christ to go to Calvary than for an onlooker to lose a night's sleep in the
garden. When the world went well with us before the war, we were doubters.
Nearly all the fiction of the past fifteen years is proof of that—it records
our fear of failure, sex, old age, and particularly of a God who refuses to
explain Himself. Now, when we have thrust the world, affections, life itself
behind us, and gaze hourly into the eyes of Death, belief comes as simply and
clearly as it did when we were children. Curious and extraordinary! The burden
of our fears has slipped from our shoulders in our attempt to do something for
others; the unbelievable and long-coveted miracle has happened—at last to every
soul who has grasped his chance of heroism, quick-coming death has become a
fifth-rate calamity.
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