They went down through Saxony, heading for Austria. And for long the Kaiser kept that callous, imperious look. But at last he, even he, at last he nearly wept. And the phantom turned then and swept him back over Saxony, and into Prussia again and over the sentries’ heads, back to his comfortable bed where it was so hard to sleep.
And though they had seen thousands of merry homes, homes that can never be merry now, shrines of perpetual mourning; though they had seen thousands of smiling German children, who will never be born now, but were only the visions of hopes blasted by him; for all the leagues over which he had been so ruthlessly hurried, dawn was yet barely breaking.
He had looked on the first few thousand homes of which he had robbed all time, and which he must see with his eyes before he may go hence. The first night of the Kaiser’s punishment was accomplished.
The English Spirit
By the end of the South African war Sergeant Cane had got one thing very well fixed in his mind, and that was that war was an overrated amusement. He said he “was fed up with it,’’ partly because that misused metaphor was then new, partly because every one was saying it: he felt it right down in his bones, and he had a long memory. So when wonderful rumours came to the East Anglian village where he lived, on August 1, 1914, Sergeant Cane said: “That means war,’’ and decided then and there to have nothing to do with it: it was somebody else’s turn; he felt he had done enough. Then came August 4th, and England true to her destiny, and then Lord Kitchener’s appeal for men. Sergeant Cane had a family to look after and a nice little house: he had left the army ten years.
In the next week all the men went who had been in the army before, all that were young enough, and a good sprinkling of the young men too who had never been in the army. Men asked Cane if he was going, and he said straight out “No.’’
By the middle of August Cane was affecting the situation. He was a little rallying point for men who did not want to go. “He knows what it’s like,’’ they said.
In the smoking room of the Big House sat the Squire an his son, Arthur Smith; and Sir Munion Boomer-Platt, the Member for the division. The Squire’s son had been in the last war as a boy, and like Sergeant Cane had left the army since. All the morning he had been cursing an imaginary general, seated in the War Office at an imaginary desk with Smith’s own letter before him, in full view but unopened. Why on earth didn’t he answer it, Smith thought. But he was calmer now, and the Squire and Sir Munion were talking of Sergeant Cane.
“Leave him to me,’’ said Sir Munion.
“Very well,’’ said the Squire. So Sir Munion Boomer-Platt went off and called on Sergeant Cane.
Mrs Cane knew what he had come for.
“Don’t let him talk you over,’’ Bill, she said.
“Not he,’’ said Sergeant Cane.
Sir Munion came on Sergeant Cane in his garden.
“A fine day,’’ said Sir Munion. And from that he went on to the war. “If you enlist,’’ he said, “they will make you a sergeant again at once. You will get a sergeant’s pay, and your wife will get the new separation allowance.’’
“Sooner have Cane,’’ said Mrs Cane.
“Yes, yes, of course,’’ said Sir Munion. “But then there is the medal, probably two or three medals, and the glory of it, and it is such a splendid life.’’
Sir Munion did warm to a thing whenever he began to hear his own words. He painted war as it has always been painted, one of the most beautiful things you could imagine. And then it mustn’t be supposed that it was like those wars that there used to be, a long way off. There would be houses where you would be billeted, and good food, and shady trees and villages wherever you went. And it was such an opportunity of seeing the Continent (“the Continent as it really is,’’ Sir Munion called it) as would never come again, and he only wished he were younger. Sir Munion really did wish it, as he spoke, for his own words stirred him profoundly; but somehow or other they did not stir Sergeant Cane. No, he had done his share, and he had a family to look after.
Sir Munion could not understand him: he went back to the Big House and said so. He had told him all the advantages he could think of that were there to be had for the asking, and Sergeant Cane merely neglected them.
“Let me have a try,’’ said Arthur Smith. “He soldiered with me before.’’
Sir Munion shrugged his shoulders. He had all the advantages at his fingers’ ends, from pay to billeting: there was nothing more to be said. Nevertheless young Smith went.
“Hullo, Sergeant Cane,’’ said Smith.
“Hello, sir,’’ said the sergeant.
“Do you remember that night at Reit River?’’
“Don’t I, sir,’’ said Cane.
“One blanket each and no ground sheet?’’
“I remember, sir,’’ said Cane.
“Didn’t it rain,’’ said Smith.
“It rained that night, proper.’’
“Drowned a few of the lice, I suppose.’’
“Not many,’’ said Cane.
“No, not many,’’ Smith reflected. “The Boers had the range all right that time.’’
“Gave it us proper,’’ said Cane.
“We were hungry that night,’’ said Smith. “I could have eaten biltong.’’
“I did eat some of it,’’ said Cane. “Not bad stuff, what there was of it, only not enough.’’
“I don’t think,’’ said Smith, “that I’ve ever slept on the bare earth since.’’
“No, sir?’’ said Cane. “It’s hard. You get used to it. But it will always be hard.’’
“Yes, it will always be hard,’’ said Smith. “Do you remember the time we were thirsty?’’
“Oh, yes, sir,’’ said Cane, “I remember that. One doesn’t forget that.’’
“No. I still dream of it sometimes,’’ said Smith. “It makes a nasty dream. I wake with my mouth all dry too, when I dream that.’’
“Yes,’’ said Cane, “one doesn’t forget being thirsty.’’
“Well,’’ said Smith, “I suppose we’re for it all over again?’’
“I suppose so, sir,’’ said Cane.
An Investigation Into the Causes and Origin of the War
The German imperial barber has been called up. He must have been called up quite early in the war. I have seen photographs in papers that leave no doubt of that. Who he is I do not know: I once read his name in an article but have forgotten it; few even know if he still lives. And yet what harm he has done! What vast evils he has unwittingly originated! Many years ago he invented a frivolity, a jeu d’esprit easily forgivable to an artist in the heyday of his youth, to whom his art was new and even perhaps wonderful. A craft, of course, rather than an art, and a humble craft at that; but then, the man was young, and what will not seem wonderful to youth?
He must have taken the craft very seriously, but as youth takes things seriously, fantastically and with laughter. He must have determined to outshine rivals: he must have gone away and thought, burning candles late perhaps, when all the palace was still. But how can youth think seriously? And there had come to him this absurd, this fantastical conceit. What else would have come? The more seriously he took the tonsorial art, the more he studied its tricks and phrases and heard old barbers lecture, the more sure were the imps of youth to prompt him to laughter and urge him to something outrageous and ridiculous. The background of the dull pomp of Potsdam must have made all this more certain. It was bound to come.
And so one day, or, as I have suggested, suddenly late one night, there came to the young artist bending over tonsorial books that quaint, mad, odd, preposterous inspiration. Ah, what pleasure there is in the madness of youth; it is not like the madness of age, clinging to outworn formulæ; it is the madness of breaking away, of galloping among precipices, of dallying with the impossible, of courting the absurd. And this inspiration, it was in none of the books; the lecturer barbers had not lectured on it, could not dream of it and did not dare to; there was no tradition for it, no precedent; it was mad; and to introduce it into the pomp of Potsdam, that was the daring of madness. And this preposterous inspiration of the absurd young barber-madman was nothing less than a moustache that without any curve at all, or any suggestion of sanity, should go suddenly up at the ends very nearly as high as the eyes!