THE IDEAL AND THE REAL.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 270, 27 April 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE IDEAL AND THE REAL.

THE RjIAL : THE SOLDIERPACKER SPEAKS.

By C. LEWIS HIND,

A letter, published in "The London Daily Chronicle," the confession cf Faith of the Soldier-Artist, typefied the Ideal. The same night the Real approached tho wr.ter in the person of a Soldier-Packer.

* * * It was late, as 1 have sai d, and very dark. Tho tapping on the window was repeated. I opened the door aud cried. " Who is it ?"

A jolly voice answered, "All, right, sr." Then a man in the dress of a wounded soldier emerged from the sleet and the darkness, and said, cheerily, " Sorry, Governor, but I've lost my way. I want the Hill Hospital." 1 drew him indoors, warmed h : s damp body, and, as the Hi- Hospital i 9 three miles across country, realised that I must accompany him. He was not drunk, but the liquor that ho had imbibed had dulled his d'scomfort perceptions, and enhanced the attraction of a groping walk through the cheerless night. Ho was quite indifferent to tho fact that he dripped rain, and that he would be punisned for exceeding hU leavo by several hours. "Nothing matters, so long as I'm back in Old England," he trolled, as we splashed through a puddle in the garden path—"Egypt was all right; but France, 0 Lord! 0 Lord; My sector in La France was a bit too thick. I was inoculated m Egypt, I was, sis times for six diseases, including dysanterry, and j never got one of them, straight 1 didn't. And I drank anyfink—water as well. Why, we used to drag the deiu beasties out of the wells with grappling irons. Mind you, 1 'ad some good times in France. There wa9 a week I 'ad in Amiens when I was billeted with a wine merchant, a proper gent, he. He was a good sort, and ns mf:ssis called mo 'Bon Tommy.' They weren't spam' with the gargle, neither! Oh, the wine's all right, but the French beer, strike me, I wouldn't wat-3fc cabbages with it."

* * * Suddenly he turned full face to me. Hitherto he had been walking a yard ahead, throwing his remarks over his left shoulder.

"See! That's what I got in France!" He bared his arm and exposed a ghastly wound, apparently healed, extending from shoulder to wrst. " Jammy sight, ain't it? I got that carrying r, aeral torpedo to a drain full of water, what we calls a trench; four of ua was carrying it, and I thought my arm was gouo.wheu the shell burst, no farther off than that telegraph pole." Ho ran up the bank to the pole to emphasise tho distance. As we st'.ll had a long way to go i suggested tint he should husband his strength. " You'll overtire yourself," 1 said. By way of reply he executed what I presume was a clog danc-e on the slippery summit of the bank. " Tired P I don't get tired walking about England. Wnen you get tired walking you carry ammunition up to the front —four hundr>d of us carrying it for fourteen days. That's when you get tired, governor, and proud, too. But d'you know what I'm proudest of all the time I was in France ? We was in a captured trench, and we 'ad to get out of it, quick, and it was full up of German dead and dying,' and I didn't walk on one of their faces —no, not one. That's what I':'' proudest of. Oh, a soldier's life ain't a bad life . . .

What? What? Does I want to go back

I had asked liim that foolish question. My. excuse is that I was numbed with cold, and wisdom was frozen out of me.

He sat down—literally sat down—upon tho wet road, rocking and roaring with laughter. •' 'Op it, mate, or I shall die of laughin'l What? Go back

# Suddenly ho became serious. He clutched my am. "It's mur-r-der, it's mur-r-der, 1 tell you, that's what it is; but it's got to be gone througn, and it's my job, ~nd we've got to crush the Tns, so as our kids may 'ave a decent life, 'lha job's got to be done, and it ain't cricket to do it bad, and I do it as well as 1 can, same as I paekel the parcels in tho shop. But it ain't war—it's mur-r-der, and when I see that shell comin' that got me in the arm, I was tickled to deatn, that I was —tickled to death to th'nk that I was going to be killed and be out of it.-But 1 wasn't killed, s you see. I dunno why I wasn't. I lay there for seven mortal hours, and while I was on the ground groaning, seme of our chaps tame up, and then they couldn't go on, and they couldn't go back 'cause of the barrage. Some of 'em was R.C.'s, and there was a priest among 'em, my, ho was a good 'un, and while they was there they said what they call Mass, we calls it receivin' the Holy Communion, at least them do as does it. Funny sight, I promise you, to see them all a-pray:ng there, and yet, I dunno, it seemed all right, and while they was prayin' I said a sort of prayer. I said : 0 God I'm a bad 'un and You're a good 'un, so make mo good,and spare my life for Jesus Christ sake. Amen. •'Then they all went to sleep, those that weren t dead or on sentry go, and I thought of tho old mother, and one of tho R.C. chaps wo!.: up and I asked h:m what this Ma" business really meant, and ho told nic, and I guess that there are worse things than that for a soldier. I said so to 'im, a::d lie •said: 'You're only a bit right, old ■port, be: a use it's tho only th'ng when >ou ro living n a 'ell upon earth!' And tiien iio told mo of poetry that .someone had written how at Agmcotirt the solders hadn't any bread and wine 'o they used a blade of grass. Funny! I dunno. I expect Ho up there understood ai;d took it n the ri"ht way.

"Oil. t his is my "Orspital, is it? I (Inn t tliink I'll go i„. | likos walking about, hng.and: it's just rcstm'." He pa.-«ed the hospital gates and wandered up the lane, and r.s he went I heard ln> voico deela to the pat'ent trees, ' Want to go back. Lord, lovo me—want to <_'o hack. But it's got to ho done, ;:nd I guess God'll look alter thoso who do it well. Blade o' grass! I'unny sort of eui-hre-euehre-euehretet: yet I dun-n-no ■"

I returned home—thinking. Is there so much difference between these two presentments of the Ideal and the I tea I? Is there so much difference between ltoussau's "God makes all things good • man meddles with them and they become evil," and Katherine Tynan's—

V hen there is no sacrifice, .Bread and \\ ne for thv disguise Come thou in the Spirit then, As at Agin'oiiit our men, Wit It desire, a blade of gra.ss Served as Eucharist and Mass."

Kach implies an ritimato Good which is waiting and willing. And is there mi much difference !»e----twecn t lie Soidier-Artist and tho Soldier-Packer? Kach has taken his oath and each realises that it was taken lor tho good of those who come after. Kach ha.s a faith—-one a star, the other a candle—different in degree, not in K-ird—that's all.