War Letters of a Public-School Boy Part 11

He was constrained to admit the force of this reasoning. Nevertheless, his rejection for the Infantry was a grievous disappointment to him.

Eventually he obtained a commission in the Army Service Corps. He was very proud to don the King's uniform. On April 15 he reported himself for duty at a home port which is the princ.i.p.al centre of supply for our armies abroad. There he remained for over three months. As his nature was in taking up any work, he got absorbed in his new duties, and, I am informed, executed them with the utmost efficiency. To keep himself physically fit he gave some of his leisure to golf and to long walks, some days tramping twenty miles and more. Looking forward impatiently to the prospect of going abroad, he used to worry himself by the thought that he, an athlete, had no more useful work to do than to superintend the unloading of railway trucks and the loading of vessels and seeing that supplies were up to specification. At Whitsuntide his mother, brother and I spent a week-end in the vicinity of the port where he was employed. One day we visited a little country town, where he had arranged to join us after his duty was done. Near to the town was a huge camp, also a hospital for wounded soldiers. We met Paul on his arrival by train and walked with him to the hotel. On the way he was kept busy acknowledging the salutes of soldiers who pa.s.sed us. At tea he was grave and preoccupied--for him a most unusual mood. I rallied him on it, and asked whether he was in trouble with his C.O.

"Certainly not," was his reply, "I get on excellently with the Colonel."

Then a moment or two later he exclaimed with emotion, "Dad, I simply can't stand it."

"Stand what!" I exclaimed.

"I can't stand receiving the salutes of men who have fought or are going out to fight while I spend my time about wharves and warehouses."

As he spoke his eyes filled with tears. To appease him was not easy.

This outburst was indicative of something more than a fugitive mood.

To his intense delight he received orders to go abroad a couple of months later. On July 27, 1915, he left England for France, in which country and Flanders the next two years of his life were to be spent.

His first appointment abroad was that of Requisitioning Officer to the 9th Cavalry Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division--a Brigade that took part in the severe fighting of the early months of the War and was now waiting eagerly for a fresh opportunity to display its prowess. Our Cavalry officers are a distinct type, with traditions and modes of life and thought of their own. Paul, to whom nothing human was alien, studied them with keen curiosity. He found them gay-hearted, chivalrous gentlemen, and soon shared their enthusiasm for horses. His experiences with the 9th Brigade are described in his letters. The psychology of the French peasantry and tradespeople with whom he came into contact also vastly interested him. It was very responsible work he had to do for a lad of 19, but he did it ably and zealously. He liked the work for its variety; it involved a great deal of riding on horseback and much motoring, and gave opportunities for practising his French.

Yet from time to time he heard voices from the trenches calling him.

He was always contrasting his lot with the hards.h.i.+ps that were being patiently endured in the front line by, as he would say, "better men than myself." He received his promotion to lieutenant in the spring of 1916. His pleasure at that step upward was soon dashed by his appointment to a Supply Column. This "grocery work," as he characterised it, was most distasteful to him; he thought of throwing up his commission and trying to enlist as a private, but finally decided to seek a commission in the Royal Field Artillery. After two unhappy months in the Supply Column he was appointed in command of an ammunition working-party at an advanced railhead in the Somme battlefield. How he enjoyed this work his letters will show. It involved, however, the hanging up of his application for transfer to the R.F.A. In October, 1916, he was appointed Requisitioning Officer to the 2nd Cavalry Brigade. He rejoiced at his escape from the inglorious, albeit necessary, work of the Supply Column, and was soon at home with his new comrades.

As time went on, it became more and more evident that our cavalry would not have much opportunity in the War. The enforced inaction preyed upon Paul's spirits, and in December he determined to do his utmost to exchange into a unit in the front line. In his application for transfer he put his preferences in this order: 1st, Infantry; 2nd, M.G.C., heavies; 3rd, Artillery. The authorities, realising that his extreme short sight disqualified him for the Infantry, a.s.signed him to the Tank Corps, which he joined on February 13, 1917.

Paul's delight at the change of employment was unbounded. His letters from the time he joined the Tank Corps sing with happiness. Having pushed all obstacles aside in order to walk the sacrificial road, he found great gladness in breasting its steeps. A singular change is discernible in his letters in the last seven months of his life. No longer was there any reference in them to political affairs at home or to international events. He who used to follow the progress of the world with so much intentness had not a word to say about the change in the Premiers.h.i.+p of Great Britain, or any comment to offer on such momentous events as the overthrow of the Tsardom in Russia, and the entry into the war of the United States of America. He was either too absorbed in his new duties to continue his old habit of observation and comment, or else his gaze was now turned otherwhere, and he was following the gleam.

A few weeks before his death I wrote to him suggesting that, as he was then twenty-one, a joint banking account in his name and my own might now be transferred to him so that he would have the money under his own control. His reply was: "I have a large number of serious questions, coupled with much hard work, engrossing my attention at present and would prefer to leave all subsidiary matters severely alone." This letter was a sign, and not the only one, that he was liberating himself from mundane ties.

Brother officers have told me of my son's happiness in the Tank Corps.

His youthful love of engines had returned in full measure. For his Tank--a "male," carrying Lewis guns and two six-pounders--he had a positive affection, and would spend hours pottering about it after his crew had knocked off for the day. Captain Gates, M.C., who had charge of the section to which Paul's Tank belonged and who was wounded in the battle in which my son was killed, came to see us in London in September. From him we had a full account of the last three months of Paul's life. Among other things, Captain Gates spoke of his _joie de vivre_, infectious gaiety, hearty appet.i.te, liberal contributions to the mess funds. Paul, he said, was the life and soul of the section.

When they were out of the battle-line he used to begin his day by a plunge in the adjacent river. He would come into breakfast looking radiant, and even then was ready for a frolic. "Some of us would be a bit down at times," said Captain Gates, "but Paul never. He was always merry. He had immense strength. In frolicsome moods he would lift a brother officer in his arms like a child, hold him helpless, and then drop him gently on the ground; but it took three or four of us to get him down. To see him come down a village in his Tank was a sight; his gaiety was so great, and he had a shout or a greeting for every pa.s.ser-by. A braver boy I have never met; he was quite calm and unruffled under sh.e.l.l-fire. If anything, he was too keen. He always wanted to be in the danger zone, and was most eager to get into personal touch with the Boches. I told Major Haslam that whenever Paul would be in battle it would be a case of the V.C. or death; for him there could be no medium course. On the morning of 31st July, when he was thrilling at the prospect of the coming attack, I said to him before we set out: 'Now, don't be too rash; remember that the lives of your crew are in your keeping.' Unfortunately he was killed quite early in the fight by a sniper's bullet. His death cast a gloom over the whole company. In our own mess we shall miss him dreadfully."

On New Year's Day, 1918, Gunner Phillips, of "C" Battalion, Tank Corps, called at our house in London, and told us a great deal about Paul from the standpoint of the men in the battalion. Mr. Phillips, a young craftsman of high intelligence, spoke with intense affection of our son, whom he knew almost from the first day Paul joined the Tanks.

He said: "Lieutenant Paul Jones was sociable and most considerate. He was a grand officer and treated his men like brothers. He would never ask the men to do what he would not do himself. The result was that we would all have done anything for him. There are a few rough chaps in our battalion--men who know the guard-room--but even these yielded gladly to his influence, and liked him very much. No officer in the battalion was so loved and respected by the men. One day last summer, when a number of Tanks had a.s.sembled in a wood, our whereabouts were discovered by the Germans, who at daybreak simply peppered the place with sh.e.l.ls. The order was given to go to the dug-outs. Lieut. Jones, aroused from sleep, came out half-dressed, but he was as cool as if he was on parade, and insisted on every man going into the dug-outs before he himself would take shelter. His merry spirits made him a great favourite with us all. My own relations with him were particularly cordial, because I was a Welshman and an athlete."

It was comforting to have these accounts at first-hand of our son's unalloyed happiness in the last seven months of his life. Countless brave men, gifted and simple, eminent and obscure, have sacrificed their lives in this War, none with more complete self-surrender than Paul Jones. In War as in Peace, he bore himself like Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior."

Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a Lover; and attired With sudden brightness, like a man inspired.

Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray, Who, not content that former Worth stand fast, Looks forward, persevering to the last, From well to better, daily self-surpast: Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth For ever, and to n.o.ble deeds give birth, Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame And leave a dead, unprofitable name-- Finds comfort in himself and in his cause: And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.

CHAPTER XII

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

_Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves._ SHAKESPEARE: "MEASURE FOR MEASURE."

_Man he loved As man; and, to the mean and the obscure And all the homely in their homely works, Transferred a courtesy which had no air Of condescension....

A kind of radiant joy Diffused around him._ WORDSWORTH: "THE PRELUDE."

Paul Jones was a prodigious worker. What he accomplished in his brief life is proof that he did not waste his time. He had an abnormal capacity for prolonged exertion, whether at work or at play. Such was the vigour of his physical frame that he was usually fresh even at the end of a hard-fought game of football. In fact, he hardly knew what physical fatigue was; and only once, when he was suffering from a chill, and had to sit for his senior scholars.h.i.+p examination, do I recollect his exhibiting any sign of mental f.a.g. He found rest in change of employment. Athletic exercises were a natural antidote to his strenuous intellectual work; and music lifted him into the region of pure emotion and soothed his soul with the concord of sweet sounds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Paul Jones in his 19th Year.]

Though he had read widely and reflected much on human life and destiny, he wore his culture as lightly as a flower. Even after he had left college, he retained the sunny outlook, the gladsomeness and the bloom of boyhood. Wherever he went he carried with him an atmosphere of joy. Fresh ingenuousness and glowing enthusiasm were part of his charm. There was a rich vein of the romantic in his character, but the cast of his mind was philosophical. He had no patience with superficiality masquerading as wisdom, and was quick to detect a fallacy in reasoning. A s.h.i.+ning trait in him was truthfulness. He would never compromise or palter with the truth, either by way of suppression, or exaggeration, or casuistical refinement. What Carlyle said of John Sterling applied with remarkable exact.i.tude to Paul Jones: "True above all one may call him; a man of perfect veracity in thought, word and deed; there was no guile or baseness anywhere found in him. Transparent as crystal, he could not hide anything sinister if such there had been to hide."

Affectations in speech or manner, and what schoolboys call "side" or "sw.a.n.k," he abhorred. His free-ranging mind loved to explore and inquire, and he would not be hindered from questionings by the weight of any convention, or the force of any authority. He obeyed Emerson's maxim: "Speak as you think; be what you are." From the vice of envy he was entirely free. His generous spirit loved to praise others, and he was rather p.r.o.ne to self-depreciation. A lenient judge of the actions of other individuals, he was a stern and exacting critic of his own. He had a lofty sense of his personal duty and responsibility; and if ever, or in anything, he fell short of his self-prescribed standard he would, so to say, whip himself with cords. From his boyhood he was distinguished by an extreme conscientiousness. "His chast.i.ty of honour felt a stain like a wound." To him conscience was to be reverenced and obeyed as "G.o.d's most intimate presence in the soul, and His most perfect image in the world." He had a pa.s.sionate hatred of injustice, and the very thought of cruelty to human beings or to dumb animals made him aflame with anger. A master or a games captain who allowed himself to be influenced by favouritism he despised. Naturally quick-tempered and impatient, he tried hard to curb these propensities, not always with success; but if he had wounded or wronged anybody, he was eager to atone. Quiet and self-contained in strange company, he was joyous and witty among kindred souls. His manners were cordial and considerate.

Servants--how he hated the name!--adored him, and he was always at ease among the working-cla.s.ses. He was essentially a man's man. To women his att.i.tude was reverential, but he was shy and embarra.s.sed in young feminine society. He used to say apologetically, "I have no small talk,"

and from the vacuity of the average drawing-room chatter he would silently steal away.

For religious dogmas he cared nothing, but he bowed in reverent homage before the Christ. From some marginal notes he has made on Froude's essay on Newman's "Grammar of a.s.sent," I take these quotations: "After all, what matter what our dogmas if we really follow the example of great teachers like Christ, who had nothing to do with creeds or ritual?" "Every man should be his own priest." The Sermon on the Mount was his religion. One of his favourite Scriptural texts was the familiar one from the Epistle of St. James (i, 27): "Pure religion and undefiled before G.o.d and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Froude in one of his essays writes of the necessity for a campaign against administrative incapacity, against swindling and cheating, against drunkenness and uncleanliness, against hunger, squalor and misery. "Hear, hear," is Paul's comment; "this should be England's war." His tastes were extremely simple. He disliked luxurious modes of living, and really enjoyed roughing it. During his twenty-seven months in the Army he never uttered a complaint as to the conditions; discomfort and hards.h.i.+p seemed only to heighten his cheerfulness. He was a non-smoker, and virtually a teetotaller, but in France, when pure drinking water was un.o.btainable, he used to take wine at dinner.

Though he set no store on money, he was so frugal in habit and spent so little on himself that he always had money at his command. Giving was a joy to him. Blest with perfect health, he was not absent from duty through indisposition for a single day in his two years'

campaigning.

Paul had in eminent degree the gift of personality. There was something magnetic about him, and in any company he compelled attention. His whole being conveyed an impression of exuberant energy.

Strength of will, serenity and good temper were expressed in his countenance. Wherever he went he attracted responsibility to himself.

Sometimes the burden a.s.signed to him was uncongenial; none the less, he would shoulder it manfully.

Except for the defect of short sight he was a splendid example of the _mens sana in corpore sano_. On one occasion, in 1911, returning from a visit to Canterbury Cathedral, we had as fellow-pa.s.senger in the train a medical pract.i.tioner of the old school with whom my wife and I had an agreeable conversation. I noted that from time to time he was closely observing Paul, then a boy of fifteen. Presently he asked him to stand up, pa.s.sed his hands over his back and shoulders, tapped his chest, and noted his big bare knees. "Heavens!" exclaimed the old doctor, "what a magnificent boy! He will grow to be a glorious man. I have never seen such physique or such vitality." This expert opinion was borne out by our son's physical growth in the next three years.

Athletic exercises a.s.sisted in the development of a physique that was naturally strong. In his nineteenth year he was six feet in height, and measured thirty-nine inches round the chest. He had exceptionally broad shoulders. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh weighed on the sinewy, supple frame. There was about him the fragrance, radiant vitality and ease of poise that are characteristic of the athlete in the pink of condition.

Though moulded on a big scale, he was very alert in movement, and had an easy swinging carriage. The head was large, hair rich and abundant, complexion fair, the face round and full, forehead high and s.p.a.cious, cheeks ruddy with the glow of health, the mouth firm and kind, revealing when he smiled a perfect set of teeth; the aspect bold and n.o.ble; grey eyes shone like stars behind his gold-rimmed gla.s.ses. A smile of enchanting sweetness often played about the strong, handsome face. His voice had a caressing note; his laugh was loud, hearty and musical. Thanks to his abounding health, neither appet.i.te nor sleep ever failed him. He had only to place his head on the pillow and sleep came to him on the instant, and he would not stir for eight or nine hours. As an infant he often slept twenty hours a day. This precious gift of sleep remained with him to the end; and in a letter to me in June, 1917, he humorously remarked that though not far away at the time, he slept undisturbed by the earth-rending explosion that preceded our capture of the Messines Ridge. His outstanding characteristic was ma.s.siveness--he was ma.s.sive in physique, in intellect, in character. He had the ingenuous simplicity that is often a.s.sociated with a big physical frame. In him a modest, unpretending nature was linked to a great soul. In judgment he was very sagacious, and for all his idealism there was a shrewd practical side to him. A boyish zest remained to the last one of his princ.i.p.al characteristics.

In the winter of 1916 we moved into a new house which my wife planned with special regard to the tastes of our two boys. Alas for these fond plannings! Paul never saw our new home, never worked in the pleasant library arranged specially for him, never entered the cosy little room garnished with his athletic trophies and adorned with those engravings of Beethoven and Wagner which he so much loved. His last visit home was in May, 1916. He declined leave at the end of 1916 from a fear that if he took it he might lose the opportunity of transferring from the A.S.C. The same spirit of devotion made him, when he was appointed to the Tank Corps, elect to be trained in France, instead of coming to England. I think that at last he almost dreaded taking leave lest a visit home might weaken his resolve to walk the sacrificial road. It was only after his death that we learnt from his brother officers in the 2nd Cavalry Brigade that he had often told them he was convinced he would not survive the War. That conviction seemed only to strengthen his determination to get into the fighting-line. A voice within told him his place was in the heart of the combat and he obeyed its monition with joyful alacrity. From the time he joined the Tank Corps a sort of divine content filled his soul.

Paul found and gave great happiness in his own home. Never moody or despondent, his sunny disposition made him like a glory in the house.

He enjoyed nothing better than a frolic with his younger brother, of whom he was devotedly fond. A racy and witty talker, he loved an argument. Many a verbal joust he and I had together. Our views did not always concur. We differed in opinion on many matters, including our estimates of eminent men, alive and dead. For example, my son did not share my contempt for Rousseau; nor could I share his admiration for Frederick the Great and Napoleon, those ruffians of genius who wrought so much evil in the world. Paul, however, adored men of action, and he forgot the crimes and moral defects of Napoleon and Frederick in contemplating the splendour of their achievements. Austere though his own morals were, he nevertheless held that a man capable of great service to the State ought not to be debarred from performing it by his religious opinions or the lack of them, or by the nature of his private life. He felt that you must take genius on its own terms.

What Paul was to his mother and to me I dare not write. Let it suffice to say that no parents were ever blessed with a richer treasure. His love for us flowed through the channel of his being like a river singing on its way. How proud we were of his n.o.bility of soul, his heroic temper, his many triumphs! Young as he was we found in him a firm stay and a sure support, and we felt ourselves more secure in life under the shelter of his strong and radiant personality. We had cherished high, and I hope not unworthy, hopes of his future--hopes which, but for the War, would a.s.suredly have been fulfilled. He had not settled in his mind what profession he would adopt. Law attracted him once, then repelled him; and I strongly dissuaded him from Journalism. Politics had a fascination for him, but in no circ.u.mstances would he have become a professional politician, and he had resolved to earn an income independently. I am inclined to think that eventually he would have become a professor and a writer of history. Though it was a quality of his nature to do thoroughly whatever he put his hand to, he was not ambitious in the ordinary sense. He had no l.u.s.t either for riches or fame. Duty, Honour, Service--these were his watchwords. His desire was to make his life worthy and gracious, and to use it in the service of humanity. That ideal he realised. If he had lived to old age he could not have made a greater thing of his life. Out of the warp and woof given to him by the Creator he has woven a n.o.ble and beautiful pattern. Words cannot express what his loss means to us. G.o.d alone knows the desolation of our hearts. But Paul has left us glorious and inspiring memories and we know he has gone to his reward. We feel, too, that though absent from us in the body, he is with us in the spirit. His mother and I, after the first stunning effect of our grief was pa.s.sing, compared notes about our inner experiences, and we found that the image of our beloved son in our eyes was the same: Paul looking divinely happy, standing before us with that enchanting smile we knew so well, and cheerily enjoining us to "Carry on; carry on!"

Our love involves the love before; Our love is vaster pa.s.sion now; Tho' mix'd with G.o.d and Nature thou, We seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh; We have thee still and we rejoice; We prosper, circled with thy voice; We shall not lose thee tho' we die.

A few weeks after Paul was killed I opened a volume of Froude's "Short Studies." Our son's early death lends significance and pathos to pa.s.sages he has marked in this book. Froude, in the essay on "England's Forgotten Worthies," speaking of honoured old age--"beautiful as the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich glorious summer"--says: "It is beautiful, but not the most beautiful." Then comes the following sentence which Paul has heavily underscored:

There is another life, hard, rough, and th.o.r.n.y, trodden with bleeding feet and aching brow; the life of which the Cross is the symbol; a battle which no peace follows this side of the grave; which the grave gapes to finish before the victory is won; and--strange that it should be so--this is the highest life of man.

Our son has written on the margin, "The best kind of life that of constant struggle." Froude goes on to refer to the work in the sixteenth century of the servants of England, whose life was a long battle, either with the elements or with men, and who pa.s.sed away content when G.o.d had nothing more to bid them do. The following pa.s.sages are again underlined:

They did not complain, and why should we complain for them?... An honourable death had no terrors for them.