Eden Phillpotts

“ Then the Doctor said he was going to read Rice.
"Mr. Fortescue," said Dunston, "has evinced the deepest interest in the achievement of Rice. He tells me that there is now a movement in art--including the sacred art of poesy--which is known as the Futurist Movement. Rice's effort reminds Mr. Fortescue of this lamentable outrage on the Muses, for it appears that the Futurists desire to thrust all that man has done for art into the flames--to forget the glories of Greece, to pour scorn on the Renaissance, to begin again with primal chaos in a world where all shall be without form and void. ”

“ I'd do much worse things than make a prize poem, if anybody offered me a guinea. If it had been one of the Doctor's wretched prizes, I wouldn't have attempted it; but a guinea is a guinea, and as nobody here can make poetry for nuts, I'm just as likely to bring it off as anybody else. It's taking a risk, in a way, but I've got my ideas about the War, just as much as Travers minor or Sutherland, and, if I don't win, I shall get a bit of fun out of it, anyway. ”

“ Meadows have answered their nation's call, with a loyalty to King and Country inevitable in men who know the demands as well as the privileges of Empire, it behoves us, as we can and how we can, to fill their places. This, then, in my contribution to the Great War. I shall fight in no foreign trenches, but labour here, sleeplessly if need be, and undertake willingly, proudly, the arduous task that they have left behind. ”

“ So Blades went to find Mitchell, Rice, and Pegram, and I considered the situation. The edge of the sand-pit was about eight feet high, and a frontal attack would have been very difficult, if not impossible; but there was an approach on the left--a gradual slope, fairly easy--and another on the right, rather difficult, as it consisted of loose stones and tree roots. On the whole, I thought I would rather defend than attack; but as, if anything came of it, I should be the challenger, I felt it would be more sporting to let the foe choose. ”

“ Dunston was always awfully great on the classic idea of Fate. He made millions of efforts to make us understand it, but failed. Blades said he understood it, and so did Abbott, and, of course, the Sixth said they did. But they always pretend to understand everything, including the War. Fate is the same as Greek tragedy, and a very difficult subject indeed.
Anyway, Cornwallis and me couldn't understand Fate, or how it worked exactly, until that far-famous whole holiday and the remarkable adventure which made Cornwallis and me blaze out into great fame, though only for a short while. ”

“ In this insolent way the policeman dared to talk of Baden-Powell's brother!
"His name is not Soapy William," answered Travers, who had turned red with anger, "and he's got no use for policemen, anyway."
"No, you take your dying oath he hasn't," said the policeman. "If he told you that, he's broke the record and told you the truth. Did you give him money, or only a fag?'
"We lent him money for a private purpose, and I'll thank you to let us pass," said Travers minor.
But the policeman wouldn't.
"He's as slippery as an eel," he said, "and I've been waiting to cop him red-'anded for a fortnight. ”

“ BY SUTHERLAND
Loud roars the dreadful cannon above the bloody field,
While, like the lightning, through the smoke's dim shroud
The tongues of flame are flashing, where, concealed,
The vainglorious enemy's battery doth vaunt and laugh aloud,
Thinking that men of British race are going to yield.
Poor German cannon-fodder! Little do they know
That those who wear khaki have never yet
Wherever, at the call of Bellona, they may go,
Surrendered to a lesser foe than Death. ”

“ Germany takes herself too seriously and other countries not seriously enough. An Englishman is always saying his own country is going to the dogs, and his Army's rotten, and his Navy only a lot of old sardine tins that ought to be scrapped, and all that sort of thing. That's his way, and when you bally Germans hear us talk like that, you go and believe it, and don't understand it's our national character to run ourselves down. And you chaps always go to the other extreme and brag about your army, and your guns, and your discipline, and your genius, and all the rest of it ”

“ In fact, to show you what people are, and what envy may do, just as Cornwallis and me began to sink back into our usual obscurity in the Lower Third, some beasts, such as Pegram and the master, Brown, said in public that the whole excitement was a mild attack of hysteria and utter footle, and that neither Cornwallis nor me had done anything but make little asses of ourselves, and that it was all pure luck and not fame at all. ”

“ The war naturally had a large effect upon us, and according as we looked at the war, so you could judge of our opinions in general. I and my brother, Travers minor, and Briggs and Saunders--though Briggs and Travers minor were themselves in the Lower Fourth--were interested in the strategy and higher command. We foretold what was going to happen next, and were sometimes quite right; whereas chaps like Abbott and Blades and Mitchell and Pegram and Rice were only interested in the brutal part, and the bloodshed and the grim particulars about the enemy's trenches after a sortie, and so on. ”

“ It was extraordinary to see such a thing in such a lonely spot, and Cornwallis, who is rather suspicious, owing to the War and being a Boy Scout, wondered if it was all right. Because, if you are once a Boy Scout, as Travers minor pointed out, you are always a Boy Scout, and though you may not be scouting in a professional sort of way, yet, if anything peculiar happens, or you get a chance of doing good to the country, you must instantly look into it. ”

“ As Briggs said, with people who pay money, you must give everybody something they will like; and though the people who would come to see Shakespeare acted might not be at all the same people who would come to see Rice hammer Bassett, yet there it was--we didn't want to disappoint anybody, because the great thing with a successful entertainment is to make everybody thoroughly feel that they have had their money's worth, as Mitchell pointed out. ”

“ The creature did not stop long, yet long enough to give himself away for ever as a spy, for he took one of the green tins of petrol, and then, saying some English swear words to himself of the worst kind, went out and slammed the door behind him. We nearly shouted with joy, but a moment later our joy was changed into the most terrible sorrow, because the spy fastened the door behind him. We heard a chain rattle and a padlock click, so there we were, entirely at the mercy of a creature evidently quite dead to pity in every way. This was, of course, Fate again, as Cornwallis pointed out. ”

“ Of course, from our point of view, his life must always be deadly, but I suppose he gets a certain amount of feeble excitement into it, in ways not known to us. It's rather interesting to wonder what old people do find worth doing; yet they must do something to amuse themselves, off and on, or they'd go mad, I should think, which they seldom do. The amusements of a very old person must be rather weird, yet they clearly like to be alive, for when my grandmother died, she was eighty--a time of life when you'd think there was simply nothing left. ”

“ To be revenged in an ordinary way is, of course, easy; but to be revenged against the Doctor is far from easy, and I reminded Tudor how hard it had been even to revenge himself on Brown, when Brown scored heavily off him; and if it was hard to be revenged on a master like Brown, what would it be to strike a blow at the Doctor? ”

“ But I was gone to do my bit, so Fortescue went, and heard the true story of the wily "Turbot."
He could only tell it in pieces, because it hurt him awfully to talk, and, in fact, he wasn't allowed to talk much at a time. But what happened was this. He had gone to the aunt for his birthday, and told her in secret that he hated Merivale worse than ever, and was ashamed to be there, with a moustache and everything; and she was a very martial and fine woman, and entirely agreed with him. ”

“ Because, when you have paid your money, you are free to display your feelings; and if people in a paying audience are such utter bounders as to laugh in the wrong places, there's no law against it, and the performers must jolly well stick it as best they can.
Well, of course, Percy minimus was a certainty, and the start was excellent. In fact, some people wanted to encore him; but this did not happen--though he would have sung again--because the live rabbit which Abbott had borrowed from Bellamy for his illusions broke loose and dashed on to the platform. ”

“ Travers minor looked at the spy in a spellbound sort of way.
"It's a wonderful disguise," he said.
"Not one of my best, though," answered the man. "I never look the same two days running. Very likely to-morrow I shall be a smart young officer; and then, again, I may look like a farmer, or a clergyman, or anything. It's part of my work to be a master of the art of disguises."
Travers minor began to whisper to me, and asked me how much money I had. Then the great spy spoke again.
"I might give you boys a job next Saturday afternoon, but you'll have to be pretty smart to do it. ”

“ Many people who sing along by the pavement make money by doing so, and I might."
"If you're caught, Dunston will flog you," I reminded him.
But he was far past a thing like that. His eyes had glittered in rather a wild way for three days now, and he said the Tommy with the black moustache was always looking reproachfully at him, and if he shut his eyes he saw him more distinctly than ever. In fact, he was getting larger and more threatening every minute. He said:
"A mere flogging is nothing to what they endure in the trenches." ”

“ But at single-stick he was exceedingly good, and, in fact, better than anybody in the school but Forrester. He much wished we could use swords and slash each other's faces, as he hoped to do when he became a student in his own country, and he said it was a mean sight to see old Dunston and Brown and Manwaring and Hutchings and the other masters all without a scratch. He said in Germany every self-respecting man of the reigning classes was gashed to the bone; and decent people wouldn't know a man who wasn't, because he was sure to be a shopkeeper or some low class thing like that. ”

“ As I was going to be a soldier myself, the actual fighting interested me most, but the psychical ideas were also interesting, because Fortescue said that often the cause won the battle. Therefore it was better to have a good psychical idea behind you, like us, than a rotten one, like Germany. I always thought the best men and the best ships and the best brains and the most money were simply bound to come out top in the long run; but Fortescue said that a bad psychical idea behind these things often wrecks the whole show. ”

“ You are invited, one and all of you, from the greatest to the least, to write a prize poem on the subject of the War, and if such a momentous theme fails to produce some notable addition to our war poetry, then Mr. Peacock's disappointment will be considerable. He trusts you to enter upon this task in no light spirit, and when I add that Mr. Peacock proposes to give a prize of one guinea--twenty-one shillings--to the victorious poet, you will see that a real effort is needed. ”

“ Dunston!
"Of course, it was the moment of my life, and I felt, in a sort of way, that my whole future career depended upon my next action. My first instinct, remembering that Norris and Booth were both flogged when caught here, was a strategic retreat; but then my duty as a Boy Scout occurred to me. It was a fearful choice of evils, you may say; for if I cleared out, I was disgraced for ever, and my mind couldn't have stood it, and if I went forward, I was also disgraced for ever, because to be flogged, to a chap with my opinions, is about the limit. ”

“ As long as it lasted, however, the fame was wonderful; for the sudden, curious result of being somebody, after you have for many years been nobody, not only leaves its mark on your own character, but quite changes the opinion of other people about you, and also the way they behave to you. ”

“ Then, in a lull, when I was handing over the boat-hook to Cornwallis, whose turn it was to hammer the bell, we distinctly heard the stealthy sound of the motor-boat returning, and Cornwallis, mounting my shoulders, and nearly breaking my neck in his excitement, reported a red light below.
Then he heard several harsh voices.
Cornwallis said:
"We are now probably done for, Towler. The spy has evidently been to a submarine, and he's heard the bell, and you can pretty easily guess what submarine Germans will do to us. In fact, our Fate is right bang off." ”

“ He told me his prize poem was all pure satire, and I said:
"I doubt if the Doctor or Peacock will see it."
And Tracey said:
"I can't help that. Poetry is art, and I can't alter my great feeling for satire to please them. It will come out; and even though old Dunston and Peacock don't see it, I know jolly well the Kaiser and the Crown Prince would, if they read it."
Well, there it was, and that was about the lot worth mentioning who had a shot at Mr. Peacock's guinea. The calendar month passed, and one day, when classes began, the Doctor appeared, supported by Peacock, Fortescue, and Brown. ”

“ Of course, Peacock wanted a poem praising up the glory of war, not sitting on it, like Travers minor did.
THE FOG OF WAR
BY TRAVERS MINOR
From out the awful fog of war
One thing too well we see--
That man has not yet reached unto
His highest majesty.
For battle is a fiendish art
We share with wolf and bear,
But man has got a soul to save--
He will not save it there.
This is the twentieth century,
We boast our great good sense. ”