THE FAITH OF TOMMY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 265, 5 April 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE FAITH OF TOMMY.

" That the British soldier is the tho world is due, not to his being clev < than another, all of which matters instinct for the idea, the tradition, of dying'for a mere whim, in which so: and gives him, long after all ordinary reserve of fortitude which is absolute human." In these words A Line ' early in tho war. Below wo give a has'jusl contributed to "Land and intimate glimpse nto the soul of Brit

IVOW herein is matter for surprise. ** That you .should take men poS-mell from the skilled heart of industry, from the routine of the office, from the small shop, the farm, the country estate —I have, for ins'ance, in the first little unit of ten men on my list (no, ycu won't guess their job), two 'labourers, two miners, two skilled cooks, a milkman, a regular, a carter, and a male attendant from a lunatic asylum : that hastily trained, hastily officered, and flung into the field with and against the finest professional soldiery in tho world, tho tradition of the service should descend upon and enwrap theso men in the way it undoubtedly has done: tint out of such various and unprecedented material, experic nces equally various and unprecedented should rencarnatc certa'n bad-legendary ancient traits, ehraeteristies, conditions of soul, and should ro:reate the flower of an England in which it were hard to see the prototype of the England of to-dav. What constant elements within, without, in tho soil, in tho blood, mast have eonspired together >n order to evoke this marvel ?

I have boen again in England after thirteen months of her various service elsewhere, and 1 suppose that is what has set mo wondering: the discrepancy —the lack of accord —between the spoken, sung, or printed voice of England, as it strikes one at home, and tho va'ce of the army, as it strikes on> out here. It is not a matter of views or opinions —wo know little enough of them tand, may I pay, you will have a job to teach us): it is in the tone, tho tamper, with whlich that articulate England of the press e.nd tho platform, and this great khaki England of the field, 6poak and act and th'nk .about th/o war, and Fritz, and the world at large. FRITZ IS SERIOUS. Now, Fritz is serious. It's true we're teaching b'm humour —he has learnt much in that respect, as anyone who has met him could testify. There is, for example, a certain vulgar rhythm of seven note; with which our M.G. s when the liio >s quiet, occasionally entertain him. Ho has learnt that, and you will often hear it rattling about tho cross-ready at night. And he was not above picking up, months e.go, the English methed Oi sgnalling shots on the range. There are many stories —most of them and always the wildest, roughly true. But in tiie general routine of things Fritz's emotions run the other way. There was a dug-out in Poziercs, for instance, in which a group of Germans had tacked up a large decorated calendar. Round the central picture was a big wreath of pansies, or some such flower; and en every one of these a German lover had inscribe! the_name of his girl—a thing no dozen British could have done, drunk or solier. And I recall, during a momentary halt in a recent push, picking up from the litter in a Bosch© dug-out one of the Fe'dgesangbuche—field song books—they all seem to have with them, and reading there in tho doorway, with the German barrage yet pounding away outside, Korncr's Vater, Ich rule Dich —Father, I call to Thee—one of the things that tntight me, year-, ago in Go.ver-street, to respect the Teuton soifh

Such things are not our .way, and the taste of Tommy does not run to sentiment, and heroics; but wo are learning to understand them, and to like Fritz tho better for them. They, like the laughter of tho Bairnsfather people, are the expre-son of a wonderful faith—a faith in thingy that are common to both sides of No Man's Land, and that German and Brit'sh, meet how they may, can respect each other for. Fritz is no doubt a bit m'Tc articulate—it's his. forte: but notmng less can inspire tliat Homcrc mirth of tho British either.

For it is not cheap or common. It takes a great occasion to evoke the downright 'laughter. When things are merely normal Tommy grouses—though ho does not complain, winch is another and a technical affair, amounting to tho height of bad form. When things are distinctly unpleasant he swears as well; bin when they are too utterly awful for words, then he 'laughs and sings.

There, was a road in Gallipoli that deservos as well of fame as many a hil'lroad in India ; both from the fighting that went before it (as the 10th and 11th can tell) from the labour that went into it (as the sappers know), and the strange life it ,<=aw. It ran for two miles just under a 600-foot ridge, with the sea bolow; and it looked toward Sijmothrace and the shores of Macedonia. Above and 'bolow on the hillside, save at ono point where tho cliff had broken clean away and tho road held on by Us eyebrows, were shooters —for the place teemed with men; poor little affairs of

COMPARISONS WITH FRITZ. WHAT THE NATION MUST DO LATER.

By A LINE OKFLC-KR.

finest —or shall I toughest—in erer or bettor trajnod, or more heroic were disputable, but to his amazing which makes him loyal to the point me point of honour may bo involved, human resources are drawn upon, a ly inexhaustible, for it is superOfficer referred to the British Tommy further article which the same officer Water"—an article which gives us an . »:n's fighting man.

:i few sandbags and a waterproof sheet or two, but welcome enough after a spell of docking on the beach, and the best, in any case, there was. A TERRIBLE DAY. Well, there came a d.iy when the dreaded late -arrived, and it began to blow—a biting wind straight from the steopoi of Russia, with all the cold of the. Arctic in its teeth; and the work on the shore was as nothing to the fatigue of the return, and a cheerless nothing at that, s'neo t!:e transports, when fate was against them, might as well hav o lain in Alexandria. In the late afternoon men would look anxiously out to sea in a vain hope the gale might fall with tho dark; lyit each succeeding night it grew fiercer, and in tho island harbours slaps were"drugged at anchor and thrown ashore. And then came rain—icy drops of water at sixty miles an hour, not pleasant to tho face; and the hi.'ls began to grow dangerous and the road began to lose its pristine beauty, and the ration parties were not joyful. Next day te temperature fell and tho wind rose, and the air became a blind'ng chaos of salt spray, ice and snow; streams of water hurtled down the hiJlsido into the Gulf of Soros, from which the stenm rose as rom a boiling cauldron;, and from time to time loose boulders crashed a path seawards, to tho destruction of much fragile architecture. That night the storm broke, r'rom n'ne o'4ftbk onward* lightning, inconceivably brilliant, and of fan'asticaliy vivid colouring, flashed and dazzled about the summit of the lull, ai;d you would have thought the very roots of it vcre cracking. Wall after wall fell in unt : l, where had been dug-outs, was rushing water; and as the, night went on tho almost constant glare showed practically tho whole battalion wading up and down for warmth along tho road—and singing, if you please, its favourite ragtime.*.

Now, it was tne wont of tho mules •with the Indian drivers, when dusk fell, to begin their climb with rations; and towards one in the morning, God knows how, some one or two arrived. Suddenly between the peals of thunder a stontor:au voioo was heard along the hillside: "A Company, turn out for your water!" and of ail the jokes that ever amused a soldier, that one went straightest home. Tommy cheered and laughed, and cheered and cheered again; and then, having begun, he set in to bo merry in earnest. J, who have heard singing in many strange places, and from lips of many nations, have heard nothing so wonderful as that rough music en the hill at Suvla; and if ever tribute of song might reach the shores of England, aye, or the gates of Heaven, I iwould it were the s'nging in that night of horror. Long l>efore dawn it froze; and by day-break tho song of life for many a man was ended. Some were cr ppled, and some were mad, and some had died. But whenever men speak of England, of tho lovo and faith and the hope of home, somewhere the echo oi* that singing shall awake again. » » # Blighty! you hear it mentioned none too often, and then only in a fashion that reminds you of Chevalier singing My Old Dutch; it took a poet his best moment to say why there's one corner of a foreign land That is for ever England—in the heart, too deep for knowing, it is there all the while. You might reasonably expect some sere of demonstration from men coming in of home ."gain alter :i year of war—l came across with several. But no—the lcave-lo.it is a dull affair, and tho first glimpse of land in the eerie dawn doesn't rouse anybody to excitement. Quietly, and without any hurry, you settlo down in the leave-train, glide past a landscape of the wonderful English green, the wonderful English tranquility. London draws about you very gradually; \ou recognise old trivial things of no importance wonder whether the tra'n will pull ip on the bridge as it always used to. There is a grinding of brakes—the huge girder alongside comes gradually to a standstill—you look across to the fretwork of Westminster, grey under the irridescent sky. tho Abb:y, the Embankment, the bargee lying at anchor, the groy tide swirling past the stone pier l ; —there falls one of those moments of silence that eomo over the noontide of the great citv. MOTHER ENGLAND. 'llie train moves i»n again; men reach mechan'cally for their baggage—it is like tlit> end of hundreds of other journeys—and yet—0 Mother of our souls.

with what Infinite dumb tenderness dost lliou luld aga n i'iiiiie arms of comfort around us, with wiiat unspeakaUe beauty, piacid and constant as of aa eternal uream, dost Thou" greet again lliino errant children—dream deeper ami truer t.nan any woria a man can lose, between sleeping and waking, born ami bound into our lives by love stronger Hum the love of man and woman, deep as tiio love of mother and child; triumphing a million times—even with song and laughter—over death; Engianu.

iou would not recognise your British soldier if 1 dragged him into the hvperbo:e, would you? An! Jiut he is tnere all the, same—who else? He is there by reason of the inviolable faith which is in his blood by reason oi his being the servant of the entirely spiritual principles that are too deep to be articulate. 1 think there is no soldier in the world, end few in history, so entirely controlled by Uie forces cf Uie soul as the Briton. 1 .wrote of him many months ago, when I had seen him at work for a short time only : " That the British soldier m the finest—or shall 1 say, the toughest—in the world, is due, not to his being cleverer or better trained, or more heroic than another; all of which matters were disputable; but to his amazing instinct for the idea, the tradition, which makes him loyal to the po'nt of dying lor a mere wham in witch some point of honour may bo involved, and gives him, long after all ordinary human resources are drawn upon, a reserve of fortitude which is absolutely inexhaustJble, tor it is superhuman." That is why these boy-officers, straight from the Playing fields of school or college, have been such a wonderfirl success; and why, to their own amazement, t'.e men will follow them where they would not fo'low a warrant-officer of twice their age and twenty times their experience. They hare only to iive up to a certain standard, normal onough to them, to have all th 3 manifold power of England behind them. For the power is spiritual, and the British soldier is his knight errant of the Unseen.

It would seem at first paradoxical that there should be probably less evidence of religion :n the British Army than in any other. The church, qua church, i 3 not a living thing—there is not the smalle-t doubt about it. It is there., doing what the men wiJl let it do —wishing it could do more; but though it lies, as it Were, behind the heart of the Army, it is little in active evidence. Yet the men are not godless—far enough from it, as their letters show. I think a sub-eons:cous faith in God is ..s much part df their m'nds as that subconscious faith in England; but they are too much occupied physiologically with their destiny of be : ng Britons to hare ronm left for anything very condesirable in the shape of creed. There is indeed one army creed so generally held that you can discuss it quilfe ? ; v naturally with anyone; what they call •'" the fatalism of the British. Here it is: Scone: Halt during an advance that must go forward at any cost. The first line, with officers, is lying In a bit of dead ground. Just in front the machine guns "are Tho captain realises that stopping here any longer Ls s mply waiting for shrapnel to finish the affair. Captain (getting up and shouting): "Oonio on, boys. If there's one ior you you've got to have it. Come on." (Everyone gets up. They go on. Machine gum are gradiudly silent.)

Now, that is eo common that nobody dispute.) it; it strikes you as entirely gratuitous and unwarranted the first tinio you eomo across it; but t month or so wi'l br'ng you unconsciously into the fame mind. I have never heard a padre start from that basis and tell u-i more about it—l suppose they think it mere pasan stoicism. So should lif it wero hold pessimistically—

Therefore, 0 man, beware, and look toward the end of things that be, Tho last oi sights, the last of days; and no man's lire account is gain Ere the full ta'e be finished axd the darkness find him without pain.

But that is not quite the temper. The odd thing is that when there does happen to be "one for you," nobody seems to mind —Queer!

Well, Fritz has his Deutch'and über Alles, his Yater, Ich rufe D'cli; and we —haven't a single patriotic song in the British Army; and as for hymns—l remember Tiaving to sing, with parched throat and sodden shirt, at ten m the morning in the middle of tho Sinai desert, and n temperature of 120ieg. in the tents, Eternal Father, Strong to Save, because it was the only hymn wo oould rea'iy count upon the regiment knowing. *

And Fritz loves to express hims3lf in ever,- shade and way, tor it convinces him of his own s ncerity. He loves being regulated, and when the AllHighest tees lit to kic-K him, he realises wlmt a gieat nation is the Fatherfand. Tommy, for the very reason that the roots of Ins soul l:c deeper, cannot be regulated beyond a certain point, at which intangible things like sheer history and tradition take the lead —yes. and cany it en in whatever other worlds there b?. Tfcere is so much n the soul of the English that has got to be left alone, which brings me to the one didactic thing I want to Fay. One can't belp wondering at times what is go:ng to happen when the enro of these men parses out of the hands of tho army into the hands of the State, and the motive at the back of it passes from our personal love of them (I don't mind adnrtting it) into the larger aims of Statecraft; and I see you at home aro talking and writing about the same question. Well, the attitude of the army when at last the colours are furled will bo simply tj;is. Tommy will sit down on his native soil and light his pipe ;.nd think metaphorically, "Well, it's til to vou now!"

Let there he, in the first place, generous and speedv treatment of the peni?ion9 and friabilities question—it is row rather a ..ore po'nt. On that matter lust and foremost it is imperative that the po'.iicians should rain the immediate trust and confidence of rraiv. Other things, with the colov-al difficulties and int. leacies which are involved in the disposition question, might then he taken at leisure. As to tint latter question, I have nn'.y one word to say. Let i:s have every possible facility for the voluntary disposition of skilled lahour. and—very especially—fir more advert anient of such facility than any government scheme has had hitherto. Tt ought to ho droit with, in that respect, on exactly the same lines rs was the recruiting: '< nmpaign of 1915. But give us tho utter min'mum of coercion. You have got to trust these nulilon* of nicn sooner cr later: make a hid for the'r confidence at the sttirt and begin that way.