Alec Waugh

“ For Colonel Westcott was a brave man. He would sell everything for the comfort and assuagement of his soul. And so he founded the Pitt League.
As an essay in the floating of a bogus company, it was a notable achievement. Never was such a web of words woven round such a dummy. Not that the Colonel spake one word that he did not believe. He was impeccably honest. He really valued the goods that he extolled.
One evening in the theatre he laid his wares before us. With an unconscious skill, he began by an appeal to the vanity and the emotions of his hearers. ”

“ KARLSRUHE AND MILTON HAYES
After the discomforts of the trenches and the tedium of a fortnight’s travelling, Karlsruhe provided a delightful haven. Here all the material needs were satisfied; there was a Red Cross issue of tin foods three times a week: the beds were moderately comfortable, and one’s clothes could be disinfected: and there was a library. After a fortnight’s exile from books there is no joy comparable to the sight of a printed page. ”

“ Perhaps the dreamer has not lost so very much, and he does at any rate carry his own world with him: he is self-sufficient; within the sure citadel of his own soul he can always find those pleasures which alone have any claim to permanence. Flaubert is always the same, behind barbed wire as in the shadow of a Wessex garden: the change of environment makes no difference there. ”

“ It is only natural that we should think the P.O.W. Theatre, Mainz, the absolute Alhambra of the Gefangenenlagers. However bad our shows had been we should have thought them supreme. But really, considering that every costume had to be improvised, every piece of scenery painted on flimsy paper, and that female attire was unpurchasable, I do not think that its shows could have been better staged. Certainly the scenic effects towards the end of our captivity were better than anything one would have seen at a provincial pantomime, though that is in itself hardly a recommendation. ”

“ With the regular arrival of parcels, and the consequent immunity from hunger, our life settled down into that ordered calm which would have been the constant level of our routine as long as the war lasted. And it was here that captivity weighed most heavily.
Before, our routine had always been to a certain extent progressive. We had been a new camp, we had had to form societies and committees. We had a library to build up, and there was always the parcel list to add its daily incentive to enthusiasm. ”

“ The Alcove was a small room opening out of the billiard-room, and its possession by the “authors, architects and other students” was a privilege jealously guarded. Not that we ever resorted to force, the mere strength of personality was sufficient. A few acid epigrams drove the intruders away with the impression that after all there were lunatics in the camp. Only one man stayed for more than an hour, and that was Captain Frobisher,{174} a large, fat man who was doubtless an excellent soldier, but who was not an addition to a literary society that prided itself upon its exclusiveness. ”

“ The wearisome sameness of the days, the monotony of the faces, the unchanged landscape, the intolerable talk about the war, all these tended to produce an effect of complete and utter depression. This was far and away our worst enemy: whole days were drenched in an incurable melancholia. The continual presence of sentries and barbed wire flung before us a perpetual symbol of{143} the intelligence fettered by the values of the phenomenal world. Life resolved itself into a picture of eternal serfdom: sometimes the body was enslaved, sometimes the mind, but there was always some bar to Freedom. ”

“ But yet they had hung on, because they had been told that victory would bring them peace; and then Foch attacked; their expectations were overthrown; the Entente were still fresh and ready to fight. There was talk of unlimited resources, and Germany was faced with the prospect of a long and harassing war that could end only in exhaustion and reverse; and that the German people were not prepared to endure.
For there will always come a point at which the individual will refuse to have his interests sacrificed for a collective abstraction with which he has not identified himself. ”

“ Perhaps some romance might be woven round the intricacies of a Trimalchio’s banquet, and a distinguished novelist made one of his characters woo triumphantly his beloved with a dazzling succession of French pâtisseries; but bully beef and pork and beans are too solid a matter for anything but a moral discourse. They have no lyric fervour, their very sound is redolent of platitudes, and from the beginning of the day up to the very end to hear nothing but panegyrics on their composition,—it was indeed a trial. ”

“ For a day or two the unfortunates who had bought it spread it over their bread, and tried to make themselves believe they liked it. The only purpose it really served was to make the bread look thicker than it was.
Then another tin would appear; there would be another rumour, another rush to the door, another disillusionment. There was a crab paste, a vegetable paste, a nondescript brown paste; all in turn went their way, and yielded to the soft intrigue of Dried Veg.
Dried Veg presented itself very innocuously in a paper bag covered with directions in German. It looked dry and unappetising. ”

“ And indeed for the individual soldier war is the same under whatever standard he may fight. German militarism may have been the aggressive factor, but the individual did not know it. Unless a people feels its cause to be just, it will not enter into the lists. If it is the aggressor, then that people must be hoodwinked. The victory lust of 1914 was a collective emotion springing from the German temperament and from their belief that they were in the right. The individual soldier went to battle with feelings not too far removed from our own. ”

“ And often in the evenings after the doors had been shut, I used to walk up and down the cold stone corridor with Barron; we would do anything to get away from the room. It was the only way to preserve our balance.
And here in its psychological aspect lies, I think, the true meaning of captivity; for in the bare recital of incidents there must be always a savour of the soulless. The conditions of life are only really important in as far as they form a framework for personality. ”

“ For the chief joy of a privilege lies in the flaunting of it before the eyes of the less fortunate. There were low murmurs of resentment.
Two afternoons later I met Stone in the last stage of exasperation. After a stream of abuse, the “sad accidents of his tragedy” became clear.
It was a wet, windy afternoon, and Stone had been waiting in the “cheque” queue for over an hour. He was heartily sick of it, but had been particularly anxious to draw his money before roll-call, having booked the billiard-table for immediately afterwards. ”

“ For, of course, by even the most successful war the position of the individual is not improved. The indemnities and confiscations that the treaty brings never cover the expenses and privations previously entailed. And collective honour is perishable stuff. But as long as the war is successful, the politicians are able to persuade the people that they are actually gaining something from it. They can say, “We have got this island and that; here our frontier has been pushed forwards, and in return for that small concession, look, behold an indemnity.” ”

“ In actual circumference the square measured about 400 yards, and it was too full of the ghosts of squad drill. On most of the walls were painted the head and shoulders of dummy targets, that a regiment of snipers had once used for rifle practice. The spirit of militarism was strong; and however delightful the Rhine may look when photographed from the top-story window of a tall block, it is less arcadian when viewed through a screen of wire netting. The whole place was littered with sentries, and barbed wire. For not one moment could one imagine one was free. ”

“ He will say to himself, “It is reasonable to expect that, by fighting for another two years, we may eventually get better terms than we should get now, if we signed a peace. But to me personally, is the difference sufficient to warrant the sufferings of a protracted war?” And the answer, as often as not, is “No.” That is, as far as one can judge, the sort of argument that presented itself to the individual German in the weeks following Foch’s resumption of the attack. ”

“ A great deal has been said and written on the subject of the treatment of British prisoners of war, and the general idea at the present moment is one of a succession of unparalleled brutalities and insults. That much inhumanity has been shown it is neither possible nor desirable to deny, and it is only just that those responsible should have to give an account of their actions. But it must be borne in mind that though all the instances brought forward are perfectly true and authentic, propaganda aims not at the vraie vérité, but at the establishment of an argument ”

“ We had exhausted our limited resources; for one man cannot compose, stage and produce a new musical comedy every fortnight, and the rivalry of the two parties had developed at such an alarming pace that we were faced with the prospect of a return to “The Money Moon,” when Milton Hayes returned to the stage, and, in his own phrase, “let loose the light that set the vault of heaven on fire.” ”

“ But by this Colonel Westcott was nothing daunted. Perhaps at the back of his mind there was the unconscious knowledge that the end is nothing, the means all, “and that to move is somewhat although the goal be far.”
“And when we go back to England,” he concluded, “you will be able to effect the reforms you have thought out here. You will go back with a collective and not an individual patriotism. You will be capable of really efficient citizenship. We shall still be able to move forward as one body. That is the Pitt League, gentlemen.” ”

“ One of them was the arrival from Karlsruhe of Tarrant and Stone. During our first week every evening brought a draft of new arrivals; and among one of the later of these appeared Tarrant and Stone, staggering beneath the accumulated kit of fourteen months’ imprisonment. The change contented them little. After the shelter and privacy of a room for two, it was no joke to be dumped into the publicity of a room of ten. The creature comforts were missing. Naturally we showered sympathy. But as a practical philosophy altruism is a sadly broken reed. ”

“ For after all, emotions like love and hate are not collective. One can only hate the thing one knows.
And from conversations with this German professor emerged the spiritual odyssey of his nation. The change from enthusiasm came apparently very quickly; probably because the Alliance suffered so heavily in{98} loss of life, and because its internal troubles were so great. The war weariness had not taken long to settle; for many months peace had seemed the only desirable end, and victory in the field was regarded as important only in as far as it appeared the safest road to this goal. ”

“ Tarrant viewed my troubles with complete composure.
“My dear Waugh,” he said, “as I’ve told you more than once before, that novel is quite unprintable, and if it is published,{235} it will plunge both you and your publisher into disaster. You’d do much better to leave it here.”
But with this I could naturally not agree, and in a state of some perturbation carried my heart-searchings to the German adjutant. He received me most affectionately.
“Ah, Mr. Waugh,” he said, “things are not as serious as all that. It will be all right. ”