by Philip Child
“‘There is a lot of power let loose in this world. Do they know that?’
“‘Yes, sir,’ I answered.… ‘Why is it let loose?’
“The figure shook his head slowly. ‘Power is an end in itself. It is enough simply to see it unleashed — if you only look at it in the right way. Beauty, the unleashing of power — they are the same thing. In the spring of a panther, the coiling of a python about its prey, in all nature, if you’d only look at it dispassionately.… Now watch.’ He tapped the barrel of the machine gun with his foot, then pointed at the head of a battalion in the marching river of men. ‘From there’— he swept his finger in an arc to the tail of the battalion — ‘to there.’”
“What did you do?” asked Dan.
“I was horrified. I cried something like: ‘Wait! Christ, you can’t do that. Those are our men.’
“‘Ours?’ inquired the figure in an icy voice.
“Then I tried to reach him to throw myself on him, but my feet caught in the sucking mud. The machine gun spoke briefly and precisely. The plodding column fell to earth symmetrically like a row of toy figures.
“‘Power!’ said the calm, cold voice.… ‘Barrage !’ When he gave that curt order, a hurricane of shells came down on the plank road and tossed planks and bodies into the air amid gouts of mud and geysers of smoke.… When the smoke cleared, Thatcher, there wasn’t a trace of that section of the plank road or of the dead men lying upon it. They were obliterated, simply buried in the sea of mud, gone as though they had never been.”
“Did the figure say anything after that?” Dan asked.
“Yes, he did. I can’t remember his exact words. He said something about your having to put yourself into the mind of a god possessing power. Looking from without. From without! … And even as he spoke, the next battalion was ploughing ahead through the gap in the plank road, heads down, feet dragging, eyes vacant.… What I do remember is that his words, whatever they were, filled me with horror so that I awoke in a cold sweat, screaming.”
“You certainly did! You scared the wits out of me.”
“You see, Thatcher, it wasn’t that I minded about those men being wiped out, but I wanted Deity — if it was Deity — to mind.”
“You mean, you thought the figure in your dream was — Deity? “
Dolughoff denied this vehemently. “No! It was the devil.… But for a moment I thought.… I was tempted to think —” The strange Russian, the madman (if he was mad) buried his face in his hands and groaned.
“What did you think for a moment?” persisted Dan.
“That it might be Deity. That that dream might be my message.… How could I make you understand? That figure was like me, Thatcher. I’m cruel — I like it. I like to feel that I have unlimited power … to give pain. But then again, I don’t want to be like that. We’re strange creatures, Thatcher. God is love. Why can’t I love my fellow men?”
“Don’t ask me, Dolughoff,” said Dan fervently.
“I’m not asking you. I’ve been made that way for a purpose. Nobody who cared a fig for other people could do what I am to be privileged to do. I must be completely detached from human beings in order that I may have courage to do my task. When the war began, I understood at once for the first time why I had been made as I was made. The things I suffered before then. But never mind that!” he broke off in a voice suddenly angry. “What I have suffered is my own affair, but what I am is going to be the concern of the whole world!”
“My God!” breathed Dan. “You don’t say! And what is this task, Dolly?”
“In some way, which will be revealed to me in due course, I am to stop the war.”
“And how will you know, Dolly? If a mere human being may presume to ask you that question. How will it be revealed?”
“Perhaps in the Bible. Perhaps in a dream. When the message comes, I shall recognize it.… Look here, Thatcher, twice I have disbelieved. Twice, under bombardments, I have said, ‘There is no God!’ Those are the only sins I have ever committed; all the other things — what I am — were put upon me for a purpose. I’ve known despair, Thatcher. Once — one of those times under a bombardment — I thought of killing myself. And it wasn’t because I was afraid. It was because, for an instant, I believed there was no God.”
“Dolly,” said Dan with sudden insight, “the trouble with you is that you are afraid. You are afraid of the truth about yourself.”
The fury in Dolughoff’s face was not pleasant to look upon. “Never say that again! As God is my master, if you do, I shall kill you, Thatcher!”
Chapter IX
By 1917 the transition from peace to war was complete. Not merely had the war changed the landscape and sown it with encampments, barracks, practice trenches, aeroplane hangars, and marching troops; it had also played a strange trick with time. The years of war were as unnatural as those hours when Joshua bade the sun to stand still; they were shut off from the orderly flux of past into present of peace times. People spoke of “before the war” as they might have spoken of the nineteenth century, as a time remembered but already remote and almost unreal.
Returning late in the evening to Ardentinny from the bulletin board of the Wellington Register , Pen found the family occupied in exactly the ways he had expected to find them occupied. Maud was writing to the boys, Joanna was writing to Dan. Fanny and Euphemia, who now lived at Ardentinny, were having an argument. Tessa Thatcher, who was staying at Ardentinny, had gone up to her room.
All the Burnets had to have some escape from the sordid task, the trivial round. Fanny found hers in managing people. Her real feelings she kept to herself, and being conventional in the social relations, her opinions about matters like the war were always those of society. Consequently, on the rare occasions when she could not avoid generalizing about it, she always referred to it as a matter of tragic heroism. The actual truth of the matter was that it really touched her very little, except that it made life interesting by giving her a great deal to do — committees, boards, auxiliaries, bazaars, and still more committees. She was not a woman of imagination or of strong feelings.
For Euphemia, however, the war had entailed several changes of religion. It was characteristic of her that, at a time when casualty lists were convincing most people that human life was worth about as much as the life of a stray dog in Constantinople, she should suddenly have become convinced of life’s sanctity. She had discovered that lover of the human form divine, Lavater. Ah, he had a feminine nature, a nature most profoundly religious. At this moment she was reading from the master to Fanny who, instead of listening, was busy drawing up agenda for a meeting.
“Listen to what Lavater says about the mouth. ‘This part of our body is so sacred to me that I scarcely dare to speak of it. What a subject of admiration! What a sublime marvel in the midst of so many other marvels of which my being consists.’” Here she came to a passage referring to the functions which the human mouth shares with those of animals. This she adroitly skipped. “‘It serves to form speech; it speaks, and will still speak, when it can never open again.’”
“Well, Euphemia,” said Pen savagely, “there was another battle today at Passchendaele, and as a result, I suppose there are thirty or forty thousand mouths that will never speak again.”
This remark struck the room to silence and the pen ceased scratching on notepaper. Euphemia came back unwillingly from her fairyland and sighed. Maud crushed her handkerchief into a hard little ball and stared at what she had written without seeing it. Pen said:
“I’m sorry. I ought not to have said that. The whole business gets on my nerves and sometimes I lash out without thinking.”
Fanny got up and went upstairs to her room. She wanted to be alone. It was one of the rare moments when she felt like meeting and talking to that hidden person, the real Frances Burnet, of whose existence she was almost unaware. Who was she? She was a s
ensible, practical, solid woman who prided herself on that fact. She did not like men very much and often said so in such a way that shrewd observers ventured to believe she obtained a thrill of vicarious romance by rejecting the sex in toto. The world, she believed, is on the whole a pleasant place if one keeps a calm mind, does one’s duty, and seldom worries. Nevertheless, her room revealed a secret strain of sentiment. There were lace pillow slips on the bed and a picture of the Christ Child above it. And here and there in the room, among the intimate knickknacks of a bedroom, there were couches of feminine fastidiousness. It was a woman’s room. She took a sheet of notepaper and wrote at the top. Dear Charles — Then she lifted her pen and mused. Why was it hard to write to Charles today? Usually it was not. Resolutely, she attacked the unwritten sheets and filled two pages with her crisp, vigorous handwriting, retailing the ploys of the family and the small talk of the town. This she signed, Your affecate sister, Frances , and reached for an envelope. But in the act of biding the sheets she hesitated again, smoothing the crease. Then without giving herself time to weigh words, with the feeling that she was revealing herself almost immodestly, she seized the pen and dashed off these words below her signature: “That God may bless and keep you safe, dear Charles, is the constant thought and prayer of your loving sister. ” Without looking at what she had written, she sealed the envelope and leaned back in the chair. It was strange to feel so moved. She was trembling and she wanted to weep.
At that moment in another bedroom, Tessa Thatcher sat at a dressing table reading a letter from her husband. Daniel, still an American citizen, was in the city of Washington writing a book on civilian morale for the government which believed that spiritual setting-up exercises might well be applied to civilians as well as to the military. The government paid Daniel a dollar a year to argue that the man who applied the morale of a good soldier to the affairs of civilian life was leading “the disciplined life” which was also “the good life.” His letter to Tessa indirectly concerned “the disciplined life.” Not without alarm, he was opposing her desire to go to England and serve as an amateur nurse. The brutal fact was that he was both alarmed and jealous. But this the psychologist did not admit to himself. One of the advantages of being a professional psychologist is that you can always use a convincing terminology to prove that what you would like to believe about human nature, particularly women’s human nature, is a scientific fact. In his letter to Tessa, he pointed out with sweet reasonableness that what women in their hearts desired, though often they did not recognize their real wish, was security. They needed it for biological reasons because they were weak and wanted safety to bring up.… But this last clause Daniel had erased, for the phrase “bring up a family” aroused a train of thought which was unpleasant to him.
Tessa, that member of the sex desiring security, put down the letter and studied her face in the mirror. Faint lines were visible, which spoke too eloquently not to any calm system of philosophy but straight to a primitive emotion which she was too much of a woman and too little of a philosopher to disregard. She was thirty, still good looking, youthful looking even, certainly youthful in her manner. She was beginning to feel passé, she was not free, she felt that she never had been. “This life, this feeling alive in every bit of you which is what we all want, is it never to come for me?” Sometimes, as at present, this question was frantically insistent, and then for months, even years, you could keep it safely in the bottom of your mind.
Downstairs, Maud having schooled herself to calmness, was once more writing. Pen watched her over the covers of a book. Supposing, he thought for the thousandth time, they did take me seriously, could they seize Ardentinny for taxes, simply because I am the nominal owner? … He thought of himself and Maud. In the old days, though Pen, making a point of rebellion, had never said prayers, Maud had always knelt at the bed holding his hand. Since they had differed about the war — since the tax business, she always went to the window and said them to the stars; it was the sole symbol of a difference between them. This hurt Pen, though he had only once referred to it. He had asked her: “What do you say when you pray, Maud?” And she had answered: “For those we love — to keep them safe. And for you too, dear. Just as always.”
Maud was writing: “Your father and I feel sure — we do not doubt it for an instant! — that whatever ordeals you may have to go through, things we at home know nothing about and could not even imagine perhaps, you will always remain fine, honourable men —”
Suddenly, she dropped her pen with a queer, urgent cry. Pen ran to her and put his arm about her. She was dazed and white as death.
“What is it, dear? Tell me!”
When she could speak, she gasped brokenly: “Alastair is wounded.… He called me.… I looked and he was here in this room.”
“Maud! My dear! That’s — why that isn’t reasonable! … You are overwrought.”
The editor of Tell ’Em the Truth , a weekly of versatile veracity with a large circulation in saloons and barber shops, was glancing with distaste at the galley of an article on the Battle of Passchendaele. His practised eye lingered only over the verbs and adjectives which were the pothooks and hangers of Tell ’Em the Truth ’s style. In a war write-up , people expected certain adjectives — glorious, intrepid, lion-hearted , etc. — but as to the verbs, an editor could shoot the ink pot. No doubt about it, the article was lousy. He rang a bell for the Smart Young Man who as cub, detective, and re-write man was his principal lieutenant. He himself was a specialist on the laws relating to libel.
The Smart Young Man strolled in and sat on the editor’s desk. Under his arm was a folded copy of their bread and butter.
“Smith,” said the editor, punching the galley with his fist, “this article is lousy! It’s nothing but a rehash of the dailies. Got to get a human angle. Just a battle — that’s too big to go home to people; got to narrow it down and tie it up with Tom, Dick, and Harry. See? Got to think of the prim’ry emotions. Now get this, Smith. There are only three ways to work up a story for Tell ’Em the Truth. Only three. A kiss on the forehead, a sly poke in the ribs, or a kick in the pants. Kiss on the forehead is out here — all the daily papers are playing it that way, and a poke in the ribs is out — there’s no sex angle to a battle. Now, how are we going to play this?”
“Kick in the pants, obviously,” said the Smart Young Man and added hopefully, “How about soaking the generals?”
“Time you learnt a little common sense, young man! This country’s at war, you can’t print stuff like that — and get away with it. Besides, it’s unpatriotic. Besides, it’s stale. Besides, as far as Tell ’Em is concerned, the army — all of it — from general to drummer boy (do they have drummers nowadays?) is just swell. You can’t blow up the army without blowing up the whole country and ourselves with it — this is a national war, see?”
“Sure, a nation in arms,” said Smith glibly.
“Yeh. All heroes. And so help me, they are heroes, at that! … That gives me an idea. Get me that letter of Penuel Thatcher’s out of the morgue, and bring the write-up on it.”
Beatrice and Cynthia Elton, though they worked as VADs at different hospitals, roomed together in the West End of London. The work they were given to do — sweeping, scrubbing, emptying bedpans, bandaging wounds that stank — absorbed their physical and nervous endurance during the day and sent them home in the evening tired out physically, but not too exhausted to wake up, again, the uneasy burden of their private lives.
On the evening of the Battle of Passchendaele, Beatrice got home first and, throwing her hat on a chair, stood looking out the window, pressing the tips of her fingers over her forehead. The roar of traffic came up to her from the street. Newsboys were shouting about another victory at Ypres. Passersby dug into their lockets for a penny, handed it over, took the paper with mechanical movement and inscrutable faces. Sometimes the voice of the great machine, its never-ending low — roaring just like this
before you were born, roaring on after you died, forever — frightened her because its impersonality, its heedlessness, was so brutal. It told you that the world was a terrible rushing river on which you floated — or which flowed past you or against you and over you no matter who you were or what you did.… Sometimes she wanted to be dominated by some passion so strong that it would make her forget herself, insignificant atom of wreckage that she was, tossed hither and thither on this mindless stream.
She got tea things and laid them on the table. Then she tried to think of something safe to talk to Cynthia about so that there would not be constraint between them. But her mind was too tired and slid back obstinately into the same groove.… Why can’t I forget? and then, almost in the same instant, Why can’t I remember?
Cynthia came in carrying an evening paper which she spread out on the tea table over the cups. They read together, without speaking, Another Battle at Passchendaele. “Ypres,” thought Cynthia.… I wonder what it’s really like there. Do they think of us ? If I had known it would be like this: waiting, waiting, waiting.… Cynthia wanted to share her thoughts with her sister, but Beatrice said bitter things about the war that stole your courage.
“Have some cake, Cynthia. It’s good. There’s a little real butter in it.”
“No. Just tea.”
She took the cup and dropped in a saccharine pellet.
In a way it’s easier for Beatrice. Everything is finished for her; completely ended. She knows where she stands and she can face it.… What a little fool I was with Alastair, wanting to hold on to what I was and not able to let go. I wasn’t ready.… But he was not tender, he didn’t understand.…
She shuddered.
Beatrice said: “Why not have a glass of sherry if you won’t drink the tea? It would do you good. I had a hard day.… Had you?”
