§ 1
at the beginning of may we had all resigned ourselves to a stay of at least two years in germany. after that we should be probably exchanged, or interned in a neutral country. perhaps the war might be over. at any rate soldiering was more or less done with; and the eye began to turn once again towards civilian occupations. in consequence the future career society was born.
it opened very modestly, under the auspices of a field officer and two subalterns. its programme was to find out what each person wanted to learn, and to provide classes as far as was possible in the required subjects. it was hoped to bring together members of the same profession and form{64} circles for schoolmasters, bankers, and farmers.
this scheme presented countless opportunities for the bureaucrat. there is in every community a certain number of people who are never so happy as when they are confronted with a host of particulars that demand tabulation. they glory in the sight of a ledger, ruled off into meticulously exact columns. they love to write at the top of each column: size of boots, colour of hair, number of distinguishing marks.
to such a one was entrusted the clerkship of the future career society. it was announced that at such and such an hour he would receive applicants. wishing to learn french, i attached myself to a queue, and after a wait of twenty minutes duly presented myself at the desk.
i was received with the stern official gaze that seems to say, “now then, young fellow, i’m a hard-worked man and can’t afford to waste time on you. let’s get to business at once.”{65}
“name?”—waugh.
“initials?”—a. r.
“married?”—no.
“single?”—yes.
“children?”—none.
“age?”—nearly twenty.
the questions followed each other with the rapidity of machine-gun bullets. these preliminaries over, he looked up at me with the benevolent fairy godfather expression of, “now, young fellow, i’m doing my best, i want to help you, but you must meet me half-way.”
“now,” he said kindly, “what work did you do before the war?”
“none at all,” i answered truthfully; “i was at school.”
“then you don’t know what you are going to do when you get back?”
“oh, something to do with books,” i hazarded.
“ah, yes, book-keeping. then i suppose that what you want is a really sound commercial education?”{66}
and he was about to jot down “commerce” when i pointed out that what i really wanted to do was not to keep books, but to write them.
“journalism? then why couldn’t you say so at once,” and he returned to the official “busyman” attitude.
finally we reached the stage to which this examination had led.
“now, then, what classes do you think of taking up?”
“french.”
he looked at me, doubtfully avuncular.
“you know, i don’t know whether french will be much use to you. is that all you are taking up? because, of course, french is very amusing, but from a commercial point of view really i should advise shorthand. no? well, then, i must just put you down for french. some notices will come round about the classes.”
and he began his inquisition of my successor. really, considering that to be entered in a french class was the whole object{67} of my visit, the interview was sufficiently prolix, but the fellow enjoyed doing it. that was the great thing.
like all innovations, the f.c.s. (as it appeared on official abbreviations) met with great support, numerous classes were formed, so numerous, in fact, were they that there was hardly enough room for them. at all periods of the day students could be observed hurrying across the court, a stool under one arm, and a pile of books under the other. the whole day was mapped out into periods; there was no vacant spot but it had to serve as a classroom; and the attendance was admirable. over a hundred officers attended the first lecture of the shorthand expert. the elementary french class was so large that it had to be divided up into three.
great trade flourished then in the kantine. otto’s grammars were at a premium. they were hoarded deliberately. one enterprising linguist went so far as to amass within the space of a week, grammars of{68} spanish, french, german, italian, arabic and hindustani, together with their keys.
it did not last long: within a week the numbers were diminished by a half; they then sank to a quarter, then an eighth. within a month no class numbered more than half a dozen, which was just as well, for really people do not want to be taught things. educational experts who spend years working out theories do not make a sufficient point of this. it is not enough to form a system, and expect the world to fit into it. only a very few desire knowledge, and those few should be catered for. they will profit by instruction. but those who are taught things against their will, speedily forget whatever they have learnt. there are, it is true, those men who can inspire a love of work, who can produce results from any material, but they are not schoolmasters. there is rarely more than one in each school. for the profession presents insufficient attractions to the really brilliant man, with the result that schoolmasters are{69} drawn from the ranks of mediocrity; and as long as this state of things continues, all that the average schoolmaster can hope to do is to keep the lazy in order, and impart his knowledge to those who want to learn. for the masses education can only mean information, and information by itself has little value.
and so within a month the educational life of the camp had assumed modest limits; but, as those who remained were genuinely keen, the classes became infinitely more efficacious. conversational french, for instance, was possible as it would never have been in a gathering of thirty. for the enthusiasts the decreased numbers were in every way advantageous, but it gave no pleasure to colonel westcott.
colonel westcott was one of those delightful persons whom captivity had turned into a burlesque. he was as extravagant as a character out of dickens, and it was hard to believe in his reality. he was so exactly the type of army officer that is caricatured on the music-hall stage. he had{70} all the foibles and loyalties of his caste. he believed fearlessly in discipline, in the anglo-saxon race, in an utopia made not with hands but with muskets.
in the time when his enthusiasms had been kept in control by the business of war, he had been an excellent soldier; but once captured, he had no outlet for his temperament. looking down on the court from the window of his room, he was horrified at the thought of so many subalterns passing out of his hands, out of the hands of discipline back into the individual energies of civilian life. and colonel westcott hated individualism: he liked to see humanity moving forward in one compact body, with himself at its head. he loathed, and was frightened by, the small bodies that went their own way and in their own time. during the four years of war nothing had given him more pleasure than to watch the slow conscription of england. in it he saw unity and safety. he was with the majority and was therefore safe.{71}
but now all those good things were ending. he saw the splitting up of all this common impulse into countless cliques, with interests not his own; and he felt that he must make one effort before the close. 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.
“gentlemen,” he said, “i have been told by one of the padres that in the lesson for march 21st, the day on which most of us were captured, occurs the text, ‘be thou a ruler{72} even in the midst among thine enemies.’ that, gentlemen, is what i want to say to you to-night. be rulers, i will tell you how.”
the prospect of gaining the mastery over the generous supply of armed sentries was alluring. there was an instant and unanimous attention.
“we can only do it in one way, gentlemen, and that is by combination. we must all work together, we must work not towards individual prosperity, but towards the prosperity of the community. no longer can we fight our enemies in the field, but we can wage a silent war, we can prepare ourselves so that afterwards we may be triumphant. we must work collectively: we must unite: the life of this camp should be like one machine, in which you are all cogs. and so, gentlemen, i have brought forward my scheme. i have called it the pitt league, because, well, gentlemen, because it rhymes with grit.”
and then followed an exposition worthy{73} of the great tartarin. but even the hero of tarascon can hardly have brought to play in the account of his visionary saharas such a fancy, such an overwhelming unreason, such a complete contempt for the bounds of probability. slowly idea followed on idea, slowly the colossal fabric was raised. that colonel westcott was a caricature must always be kept in mind; but even so i think the excitement of the moment must have caught him up. even he could not in cold blood have conceived such fabulous creations.
the scheme began by amalgamating the future career society; and starting at the point where that society had wisely halted, proceeded to include every department of imperial life. committees would be formed; debates and lectures arranged. a research committee would be able to provide information on any subject; a trade and commerce department would provide a comprehensive study of the growth of trade and of colonial expansion. it would work out every problem of navigation, and every fine question of{74} markets, their rise and fall. a department for home affairs would provide recipes by which thirty million people could live without competition. divorce, politics, education, state control of vice, small holdings, all these would be settled. and then the dominions, each colony would have its own department, where colonials would decide on how best they could further the imperial ideals. then there was the regular soldier side, the imperial force branch. and here perhaps the colonel’s fancy flew farthest and highest, military strategy would be dealt with from primeval time. sand-maps on the floor would show the site of battle-fields and the dispositions of the rival armies; tactics would be exhaustively discussed. a new and infallible method of attack would be evolved for the next war.
and all these activities would be accomplished, in spite of the fact that no one in the camp possessed the least information on any of these points; and that as a remedy for their defect there existed neither a{75} reference library nor the likelihood of obtaining one. 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.”
and then followed the sentence for which he deserves immortality.
“it’s my scheme and i like it. i know you’ll like it too.”
he had out-tartarined tartarin. caricature in one human frame could go no further.{76}
§ 2
the pitt league fared as might have been expected. it was born and christened amid much enthusiasm. the whole camp found itself enrolled under some branch or other, elaborate programmes were devised. the walls of the theatre were covered with notices. every wednesday the heads of each branch met in what was called the parliament of the pitt league, of which colonel westcott was prime minister. this gave the required semblance of unity and collective patriotism. a few field officers and senior captains found that a certain amount of work had devolved upon their shoulders, but the life of the average subaltern continued undisturbed. in practice no one is a collectivist, unless it is likely to prove to his advantage. no one wants to be a cog in any machine that does not produce tangible results; and though the camp gave the pitt league its sympathy and encouragement, it did not see its way{77} to further any interests not its own. the colonel, however, was quite content with his work. he was prime minister of his own parliament, and everywhere his eyes were confronted with tabulated evidence of his enterprise.
“a very different camp,” he would say to himself. “there is now a purpose and an end ... a thorough change of attitude, and,” he would proudly add, “it is all my doing.”
from this energy, however, there did spring two incidental results: one touched me personally, the other only in as far as i was a member of the general community. the former was that i discovered my name on the syllabus of the home affairs branch as a future lecturer on social reform, a privilege which was deferred weekly with considerable ingenuity until the signing of the armistice absolved me from my promise; the other was the inauguration of the priority pass.
for it is one of the traits in human nature{78} that no sooner does a man begin to do any work for which he is not paid than he demands recognition of some sort. he wants to be differentiated from the rest. the man who has served twelve months as an a.s.c. batman clamours for an extra chevron. why should he be ranked on the same level as the infantryman who has only been in the line thirteen weeks. the officer who censored letters at the base in the first october of the war demands a riband to show he is not one of those mere conscripts who only landed in 1915. they are working of course not “for glory or for honour.” their service is perfectly disinterested, all they want is to be of help to the nation. but still, they do think, that in common justice some sort of difference should be made, some privilege perhaps....
and it was so with the officials of the pitt league. they all maintained that it was their greatest delight to be of service to the camp, that they were collectivists of the truest and most practical kind. yet they{79} were only human, and when they saw lazy officers reaping where they had themselves sown, the wedge of justice slipped itself beneath the barrier of their altruism. the elemental idea of “mine and thine” once firmly planted, strengthened and took root. they felt the need of recompense.
for some time they were in doubt as to the dress in which public gratitude should be arrayed. but at last the shorthand expert was gifted with an inspiration. triumphantly he bore his commodity to the premier.
“sir, couldn’t we have precedence in queues?”
“precedence, wilkins?”
“yes, sir, we have such a lot to do, that really we have not time to waste half the morning in queues. couldn’t we have a pass or something so that we could go straight in?”
“oh, yes, admirable, wilkins, admirable. a priority pass, the very thing.”
and so the abuse of privilege began.{80}
the camp, not realising what it would lead to, received this news with equanimity.
“quite right too,” was the general opinion. “these fellows do a lot of work. they have not got too much spare time.”
within a day or two the opinion changed. for holders of passes always used them at the same time, that is, when it was most inconvenient to the rest of the queue. 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. and it had really looked as though he would{81} be just in time. five more minutes, and he was fourth in the queue; a minute a man. it should have worked out all right.
slowly the queue had moved forwards. too slowly for stone. there had been a delay of almost two minutes, because some ass had not been able to remember the amount of his cheque. numerous sheets had to be turned over. it was “a bit thick.”
but at last the three men in front of him had been disposed of. with a minute to spare, he had just been about to walk into the office, when a voice had bawled, “half a minute,” and a diminutive captain had rushed up panting.
“just in time.”
“afraid you won’t get in before roll-call,” stone had said, sunning himself in his serenity.
“oh, that’s all right. i’ve got a priority pass.”
“a what?”
“a priority pass.”
“but what for?”{82}
“botany. ah, there’s that fellow coming out. my turn, cheerioh.”
and thirty seconds later the bell had gone for roll-call.
“it’s the limit,” said stone, “the absolute limit, and do you know what that absurd botany ass does, two hours a week, that’s all. damn it all, and then he can just saunter into a queue whenever he likes. i’ve a jolly good mind to get a priority pass myself, it’s quite easy, all you’ve got to do is to invent a language that no one else is likely to know. finnish, say, and old westcott would be only too bucked to have another branch to his ‘up dogs and at ’em’ league.”
to invent a language.
the idea ran through my mind, a glimmering thread of thought. what was it george moore had said? a new tongue was needed. the day of the english language was over. it had passed through so many hands, been filtered in so many places, that it was now colourless and without significance. but this new tongue, this child that was waiting{83} to be cradled; it was a lyre from which any rhythm might be struck; it was virgin soil that would bear epic upon epic, masterpiece on masterpiece; and it would be so simple, so childishly simple. all that was needed was the purchase of an otto-sauer conversation grammar which we could translate into finnish. no one would be any the wiser. colonel westcott could be taken in quite easily.
i began to picture the scene.
stone and i would go to him one evening, when there had been potatoes for supper. we should find him well filled and satisfied, puffing contentedly at a cigar, and musing sentimentally over an ideal world peopled with the anglo-saxon race, bred on collectivism and eugenics.
he would greet us with a kindly patronising smile.
“well, stone. yes, and let me see, who is it, waugh. well?”
“well, sir, the fact is that stone and myself have been thinking a good deal lately{84} about our duties as citizens. we were wondering whether we were really doing all we could. it’s such a splendid opportunity here, sir. we could lay the foundations of so much.”
“certainly, waugh, certainly, an admirable thought.”
“and, sir, we were wondering whether you had ever considered the possibilities of finland, sir.”
“finland, waugh.”
“yes, sir. i believe it’s the coming centre of the herring trade, and i’m sure if some of these fellows here realised it, they would be only too keen to try their luck there, and it would be a great thing for the empire, sir, if we could collar the herring trade.”
and colonel westcott, whose ideals of citizenship were more surely laid than his knowledge of commerce, would not be able to withhold a grunt of assent.
“but, sir,” i should go on, “the fact is that in order to trade with the finns one must be able to speak their language, and{85} you see, sir, it’s the only language they’ve got, and they’re very sensitive about it.”
“of course, of course, very natural, very natural indeed.”
“and, sir, stone and i, well, i’ve lived there a good deal, and so has stone, and we thought, sir, it might be a good thing to start a finnish class.”
“admirable, waugh, of course, if you think you can do it.”
“oh, yes, i think we could, sir,” i should explain. “as i said to stone, ‘we owe a duty to the state as well as to ourselves, and it would be very selfish if we went to finland alone.’ it’s our duty as citizens, sir, to think, not in terms of the individual, but of the community.”
almost an echo of the colonel’s own sentiments as expressed in his most recent jeremiad. how benignly he would beam on us, how he would recognise in us the objectification of his ideal.
“i’m very glad, very gratified indeed that you should feel like that,” he would have{86} said. “it’s the right spirit, the sooner you start the class the better.”
we should have risen to go, but at the door we should have turned back.
“i’m sorry to trouble you again, sir,” i should say, “but there is just one little point. it’ll mean a great deal of work for stone and myself. we shall have no grammar or anything.”
“of course, waugh, i can quite see that.”
“and there’s very little spare time with these queues and things.”
“oh, but i think we shall be able to manage that,” colonel westcott would say. “i don’t see why you shouldn’t both be given priority passes. it’s a very unselfish work, i’ll see about it. i think it’ll be all right.”
and within two days our names would appear on the already lengthening list of privileged persons.
and then what would happen? the finnish class would follow the course of all our studies in the offiziergefangenenlager,{87} mainz. upwards of thirty would attend the initial lecture. within a week this number would have sunken within the teens, from which it would gradually recede to the comfortable proportions of five or six. for these few enthusiasts we should cater, and for their righteousness, as aforetime for gomorrah’s, would be issued the divine dispensation—a yellow ticket.
and what a language it would be. with what fancy would the common articulation of the everyday world be passed into an ?sthetic mould. how arbitrary would be the rules of taste, what a harmonious blending of sibilants and liquids. how george moore would glory in our creation.
and then i supposed we should begin to tire of our toy; the novelty would wear off; the lyric impulse would be lost. it would degenerate into hackwork. and then we should try to get rid of it; with a sort of false sentimentality we should muse over the pleasant hours we had spent with it, and wonder if the affection had been returned,{88} almost as the hero of a french novel sighs over a discarded mistress.
then, of course, there would be colonel westcott. we should not wish to disillusion him, to show ourselves as we really were. we should wish to maintain the deception to its end. his opinion of us would be very high.
we should present ourselves to him apologetically, as men for whom the burden of reforming mankind had grown too heavy. we should give the colonel the impression that he and we were pioneers in advance of our age, stationed at the outposts of progress; that where we stood to-day, the world would stand to-morrow. but in the meantime....
“you see, sir,” i should say, “there are only four fellows learning finnish, and none of them, if i may say so, seem to me the sort of fellows we really want. they’re more of the class of chap who learns a language merely to be able to say he knows it, and really, sir, i don’t know if it’s worth our while to spend so much time on them. you{89} were talking the other day about conservation of energy, sir.”
the colonel would bend confidingly. so far this catchword had not suggested itself to him. but it was surely only a matter of time.
“and,” i should continue, “we thought we’d be really doing better if we were to learn a language ourselves. stone thought the same, sir, but he said, ‘we must ask colonel westcott first.’”
“ah, quite right, quite right, it’s no use wasting our forces. if fellows won’t back you up, well, it’s their fault, not yours. you’ve done your best.”
and doubtless in that moment the colonel’s thoughts would be flying forward tentatively to the grey days of demobilisation, to the sundering of the one river into its many streams. and he could see himself standing there at the parting of the ways, his averted eyes turned back to the pleasant pastures, to the unity and harmony of war. he could see himself as the last relic of a{90} more golden era, of a cleaner if not more clever world.
“and you really think, sir, that we have done our best?”
“no doubt about that, oh, none at all,” he would sigh. “i only wish we had a few more like you in the camp. it’s the right spirit.”
and we should acknowledge the panegyric with a smile, and leave him to his dreams and aspirations, his pan-saxon utopia.
but it could not be done. in actuality the scheme would lose its glamour, its wayward charm. it was better to let it remain in the imagination, the fresh counterpart of some less noble phenomenon. aimez ce que jamais on ne verra pas deux fois.
