Joseph Hocking

“ News came of soldiers being crippled for life by frost-bite; stories were told of men standing up to the waist in icy slush; wounded men came back from the front telling stories about the terrible power of the Germans; newspapers were obliged to admit that we seemed to be powerless in the face of the enemy.
All this made Tom somewhat afraid; he was not cast in an heroic mould; the spirit of adventure was not strong within him.
"I say, Tom," said a man whose three sons were in the army, "are you going to stay home like a coward?" ”

“ Who are we fighting for, I should like to know? We are fighting for them, and for our women, and for the old country. They think they can stop at home and criticise, and then when we have done the work, share the benefits. Great God!"—and here the sergeant indulged in some unprintable language—"I would like to get hold of them."
"Isn't it dangerous here?" asked Tom, as another shrieking shell passed over their heads.
"Not just now," replied the other; "their shells are falling on the other side of the town. ”

“ His one thought was to make Alice know that he was ashamed of himself for leaving her, and that he loved her all the time.
"Ay," said George Lister to his wife when Tom had left the house, "our
Alice is a fool."
"'Appen she is," replied Mrs. Lister, "but yon's a grand lad, a fair grand lad!"
"He may be a grand lad," retorted her husband, "and I don't deny that he has behaved vary weel, but how can he keep a wife? What sort of a home can he give our Alice?"
"A lad that can do what he has done," replied Mrs. Lister, "will make his way anywhere. ”

“ It was several months now since he had left Brunford, and he could not help reflecting on the change that had taken place in him. He still wore a private's uniform, and carried the mud of the trenches on his clothes. But the Tom Pollard who had enlisted at the Mechanics' Institute was not the same lad who now made his way to his Lancashire home. Since then he had been through strange scenes, and had realised wonderful experiences. New facts and new forces had come into his life; day by day he had been face to face with death, and this had led him to touch the very core of life. ”

“ Do you find anything at the Thorn and Thistle better than you found in the young men's class? You sneer at religion, but religion does no one any harm; rather it always does good; anyhow, it's everything to me, and you have to make your choice."
Tom looked at her steadily. He knew what she meant, knew too that the time had come when he would have to make his choice. At that moment he saw what Polly Powell meant to his life, saw, too, that if he followed the road in which he had been walking during the last few months he would have to give up Alice Lister. ”

“ For some weeks Tom was in the neighbourhood of Ypres without taking any part in the righting. During that time he got accustomed to the constant booming of the guns, and to the fact that any moment a shell might fall near him and blow him into eternity. On more than one occasion, too, he roamed around the ruins of Ypres; and while he could not be called an imaginative lad he could not help being impressed by the ghastly desolation of this one-time beautiful city. In many of the streets not one stone was left upon another, not one of the inhabitants who had formerly lived there remained ”

“ Neither am I going to try to trace the history of the events which led up to the war which has staggered humanity. We all know now what Germany had in her mind: how by pretence, and deceit, and fraud she worked her will; how she thought that England would allow her to crush France and Russia without moving a finger. Germany thought that the English were blind, and that for the sake of gain we should remain neutral and never lift a finger while she swept over Belgium to crush France ”

“ If the Germans join Austria against Russia and France, we shall be able to steal the German trade;—and we can do with it," was the reply.
"Ay, we can."
"Just see how Manchester is riddled with Germans. They have been robbing our trade right and left, and even here in Brunford Germans are poking their noses. I am about sick of them. Thirty years ago we hardly ever saw a German, and now they have nobbled our best-paying lines. If I had my way, all Germans should be driven out of the country; they are a bad lot to deal with; they have no business honour, and they don't play the game." ”

“ He was a young Cornish lad, the son of a well-to-do father who had sent him to a good public school, and from thence to Lancashire to learn the manufacturing business. This young fellow, Robert Penrose by name, although belonging socially to a different class from that in which Tom moved, took a liking to him. He was amused at his good humour, and seemed to be grieved at seeing him drifting with the dregs of the battalion.
"I say, Pollard," he said to him on one occasion, "do you know you are making an ass of yourself? You have the makings of a man in you, and yet you mix with that lot." ”

“ McPhail's face had become set and stern, although his lips quivered. Afterwards when they had gone to the canteen the Scotchman had uttered words which Tom never forgot.
He wondered now if McPhail had meant what he said, wondered too if he
had realised the same experiences which he, Tom, had passed through.
It seemed awful that this tall, stalwart Scotchman was going to die.
Why should men be killed in this way? Why should that lonely
Scotchwoman, McPhail's mother, have to suffer because of German sins? ”

“ I lived i' Brunford."
"Of course you can go your own way," said Penrose. "I suppose you will spend your evening in the public-house, or at some cinema show, or perhaps you will be larking around with some silly girls; but I am going to the Y.M.C.A."
"Do you go there?" cried Tom in astonishment. For Penrose was looked upon as anything but goody-goody, and he was generally admired. He was the best boxer in the company, was smart in drill, could do long marches with the best of them, and was always ready to do a kindly action. ”

“ What a French chap can learn a Lancashire chap can.
"Do you know, sir," went on Tom, "that the Y.M.C.A. has got no less than six huts here; each of them will hold a thousand men, and they are jam-full every night. And all the workers are so friendly too."
"And do you go to any religious services, Tom?" I asked.
"I been to two or three," replied Tom, "but I don't hold much wi' religion. Still they're grand people, and you may ask any man in the camp, from the sergeant-major down to the newest recruit, and they will all tell you the same thing, The Y.M.C.A. is a fair God-send to us." ”

“ Tom thought he knew what intense artillery work meant, but he realised that day that hitherto he had seen and heard nothing. Such a tornado of shells burst around him that it was like hell let loose. Hour after hour the Germans bombarded our trenches, tearing great holes in the ground, and undoing the work of months. It seemed to Tom that no man could escape. ”

“ Crowds of soldiers thronged the platform, while hundreds of their friends who came to see them off made it difficult to move; many of the Tommies were shouting and cheering, while others found their way into the carriages as if anxious to be quiet.
"They seem splendid fellows," said Alice, "but some of them are very rough, aren't they?"
"Just a bit rough," replied Tom, "but they are all right. Some of those very chaps who look rough and common are just heroes, you know; they would face any kind of danger to do a pal a good turn. ”

“ I am glad to see you," and Polly Powell made her way through the crowd.
"Thank you," replied Tom quietly; "have you brought one of your young men with you, Polly?"
"I have not got any young men," was Polly's reply. Whereupon there was a general laugh of incredulity.
Polly, heedless of the crowd, and although angered at the remarks that were made, still held her ground.
"You are coming down to the Thorn and Thistle, aren't you, Tom?" she said; "mother and father are expecting you."
"No, thank you, Polly," said Tom. "I am going home with my mother and father. ”

“ For Alice was not only better educated than Tom, but she moved in rather a better circle. Alice's father was one who, beginning life as a weaver, had by steady perseverance and good common sense become a small manufacturer. He was anything but a rich man, but he was what the people called "Doin' vary weel"—one who with good luck would in about ten years' time "addle a tidy bit of brass." ”

“ For there is no part in England where politics have such a keen interest for the working-classes as they have in Lancashire. Almost every man there is a politician, and there are but few, especially among the older men, who have not an intelligent grasp not only of home, but of international affairs.
"I'll tell you what," said one manufacturer to another as they stood on the steps of the Mechanics' Institute, "those Germans mean war; they have been preparing for it for years, and they are trying to force it." ”

“ I have talked with him while great guns were booming as well as during his hours of well-earned rest, when he was in a garrulous mood, and was glad to crack a joke "wi' a man wearin' a black coat." I have also been with him up at Ypres, when the shells were shrieking over our heads, and the "pep, pep, pep" of machine guns heralded the messengers of death. We stood side by side in the front trenches, less than a hundred yards from the German sand-bags, when to lift one's head meant a Hun's bullet through one's brain, and when "woolly bears" were common. ”

“ Look at Brunford; here are thousands upon thousands of fellows who are hanging back, and who are worth nothing in a time of war. If this had been a German town every man you see would be a soldier. Then see how much in advance of us the Germans are in scientific matters. They have got mountains of guns and ammunition. Besides, they have made a science of war, while Englishmen are only amateurs. Think of what they have done already; nearly the whole of Belgium belongs to them, and a great slice of France."
"But do you mean to say," cried Tom, "that they will lick us? ”

“ Only that our people at home may realise what heroes our lads are; what they have to face in order to save our country, and what kind of an enemy they have to deal with. I am describing it to try if possible to raise a blush of shame on the faces of those shirkers at home who are a disgrace to the name of Englishman.
Tom passed through this ordeal without a scratch, and by and by when his company was relieved, and he returned to a place of safety, the whole episode seemed but a ghastly dream. And yet it caused a great change to Tom's life. ”

“ And when finally early in August the news came to Brunford that England had decided to take her part in the great struggle, Tom found himself greatly interested.
"I'll tell you what," said Enoch Powell, the landlord of the Thorn and Thistle, "the Germans have bitten off a bigger piece than they can chew. I give them about six weeks. What can they do with Russia on the one side and France and England on the other? Besides, the German people don't want war. It's that blooming Kaiser. In about six weeks' time they will be on their knees crying for mercy." ”

“ Tom was by no means a hero. There was a great deal of good in his nature, but there were coarse elements which affected him strongly. If Polly Powell had not appeared, it is possible, such was Alice's influence over him, that he would have remained true to his former ambitions, and probably have risen in the social scale. He was intelligent, and possessed a large degree of what the Lancashire people called gumption. ”

“ It will be the shirkers, the cowards! Look, you young men!" he cried passionately. "Thousands and tens of thousands of our brave fellows are at this time in the trenches; fighting, suffering, dying. What for? For England, for England's honour, for the safety of her women, for the sacredness of our lives, for you: while you, you skulk at home smoking your cigarettes, go to your places of amusement, and drink your beer. Don't you realise that you are playing the coward?" ”

“ And yet he felt all alone. "Where's Jim Bates now, I wonder, and Arthur Wadge, and Bill Perkins, and George Wilson? they were killed, but are they really dead?" he said to himself. He had known these lads well; in fact, they had been pals of his, and he wondered what had become of them. Were they still alive? What had they felt like when they had to cross the deep, dark valley? What was death? ”

“ I hear that years ago you were on the way to becoming an educated chap, and now everybody's looking upon you as one of the drinking fellows."
"It's all very well for you to talk," said Tom, "you're a swell."
"I am a private just as you are," replied Penrose.
"Ay, but you will be getting a commission soon, and there's no chance of that for me. I don't belong to your sort. Besides, what can I do? There's no places but the theatre, the cinema show, and the public-house when the day's work is over."
"That's all nonsense," replied Penrose.
"Well, what is there?" asked Tom. ”

“ A few minutes later they entered a large hall where perhaps six or seven hundred soldiers had gathered.
There are few counties in England where music is more cultivated than in Lancashire, and that night Tom listened almost spellbound. Songs that he knew and loved were sung; songs which he had heard Alice Lister sing. Recitations were given in broad Lancashire dialect which gave him keen enjoyment. More than all this there was a feeling of good-fellowship; the Y.M.C.A. workers were evidently on the friendliest of terms with the men, while there was no suggestion of goody-goodyism. ”

“ They respected an enemy who fought openly and fairly, but for a man who was a staff officer in the British Army and who consequently learnt many of the plans of that Army; for a man who had taken the oath to be faithful to his King and Country, and yet to act as he had acted, was ignominy too vile for expression. ”