“then,” said my friend, “what is this war like? i ask you if it is this, or that; and you shake your head. but you will not satisfy me with negatives. i want to know the truth; what is it like?”
there was a long silence.
“express that silence; that is what we want to hear.”
“the mask of glory,” i said, “has been stripped from the face of war.”
“and we are fighting the better for that,” continued my friend.
“you see that?” i exclaimed. “but of course you do. we know it, and you at home know it. and you want to know the truth?”
“of course,” was the reply.
“i do not say that what you have read is not true,” said i; “but i do say that i have read nothing that gives a complete or proportioned picture. i have not yet found a perfect simile for this war, but the nearest i can think of is that of a pack of cards. life in this war is a series of events so utterly different and disconnected, that the effect xvi upon the actor in the midst of them is like receiving a hand of cards from an invisible dealer. there are four suits in the pack. spades represent the dullness, mud, weariness, and sordidness. clubs stand for another side, the humour, the cheerfulness, the jollity, and good-fellowship. in diamonds i see the glitter of excitement and adventure. hearts are a tragic suit of agony, horror, and death. and to each man the invisible dealer gives a succession of cards; sometimes they seem all black; sometimes they are red and black alternately; and at times they come red, red, red; and at the end is the ace of hearts.”
“i understand,” said my friend. “and now tell me your hand.”
“it was a long hand,” i replied; “i think i had better try and write it down in a book. i have never written a book. i wonder how it would pan out? at first my hand was chiefly black with a sprinkling of diamonds; later i received more diamonds, but the hearts began to come as well; at last the hearts seemed to be squeezing out the clubs and diamonds. there were always plenty of spades.”
there was another silence.
“there was one phrase,” i resumed, “in the daily communiqués that used to strike us rather out there;” it was, “nothing of importance to record on the rest of the front.” i believe that a hundred years hence this phrase will be repeated in the history books. there will be a passage like xvii this: “save for the gigantic effort of germany to break through the french lines at verdun, nothing of importance occurred on the western front between september, 1915, and the opening of the somme offensive on the 1st of july, 1916.” and this will be believed, unless men have learnt to read history aright by then. for the river of history is full of waterfalls that attract the day excursionist—such as battles, and laws, and the deaths of kings; whereas the spirit of the river is not in the waterfalls. there are men who were wounded in the somme battle, who had only seen a few weeks of war. i have yet to see a waterfall; but i have learned something of the spirit of the deep river in eight months of “nothing of importance.”
this, then, is the book that i have written. it is the spirit of the war as it came to me, first in big incoherent impressions, later as a more intelligible whole. perhaps it will seem that the first chapters are somewhat light in tone and inclined to gloss over the terrible side of war. but that is just what happens; at first, the interest and adventure are paramount, and it is only after a time, only after all the novelty has worn away, that one gets the real proportion. if the first chapters do not bite deep, remember that this was my experience. this book does not claim to be always sensational or thrilling. one claim only i make for it: from end to end it is the truth. xviii
the events recorded are real and true in every detail. i have nowhere exaggerated; for in this war there is nothing more terrible than the truth.
all the persons mentioned are also real, though i have thought it better to give them pseudonyms.
january, 1917. xix
