"THE BRAVEST MAN ALIVE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 159, 10 July 1942, Page 7

"THE BRAVEST MAN ALIVE"

What Barrie Thought Of Bernard Freyberg

N his report on the battle of Libya Mr. Churchill told the House of Commons that the gallant General Freyberg had "again" been wounded. That "again" means in fact ten times, and may recall to some of our readers the tribute to Sir Bernard Freyberg in the recently published life of Sir James Barrie by Denis Mackail.

We quoted a line or two of this in a recent editorial. Here is the full passage: "It was Lady Scott, fitly enough, who introduced another hero at the end of November this year. He was in hospital, recovering from wounds received at Beaumont-Hamel — but he was wounded nine times in all-and Barrie was taken to see him. Bernard Freyberg, V.C., D.S.O.-ultimately with two bars-and to be mentioned, before the war was over, six times in despatches. Aged, at this moment, twenty-six. In August, 1914, he had been a dentist in New Zealand, but had awaited no general call to arms. He had At once made his own way to England, raising funds on the way by his spectacular skill at swimming, had then joined the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, and had been the first to land, in more than epic conditions, on the coast of Gallipoli. There he continued to display such bravery as strongly, though, inaccurately, to suggest that he was ignorant of the existence of anything else;. and for the rest of the war he was either displaying it again or lying in hospital waiting for another chance. Never has there been such a man of valour. One shudders, perhaps, as one thinks of him as a dentist. Yet. one needn’t. Since for one thing he never returned to his old profession, and for another, he would always be quite as kind as he was brave. _ "And as simple? Yes and no. Simple always in every sense connoting honesty and virtue, but the very last man to describe as all brawn and body and no brains. The body, scarred all over,

remained tremendously impressive. But Bernard Freyberg adjusted himself, with something more than ordinary intelligence, to flattery and fame. In that Royal Naval Division, and afterwards, there were friends of a very different upbringing and stamp. They couldn’t and didn’t attempt to hide their admiration, yet as Freyberg passed more and more into this circle, how easily-if he hadn’t been Freyberg-it might have softened him or turned him into a snob. It didn’t. He remained entirely himself.

The background altered, but nothing could touch his integrity. If that’s being simple, then simple is one of the right words, And of course he was infinitely simpler than Barrie. "But there was a link at once. Each, as it had been with Captain Scott,, looked up to the other for qualities which he envied, and found them, and friendship as well. Barrie, of course, contributed all the cunning; was the one who consciously began playing his cards. He had met. the bravest man in the world, and if charm could do it didn’t mean to let him go. But Freyberg, again like Scott, was discovering a hero himself, and used magnetism of another kind. ‘You had so much to give and I nothing.’ Untrue, as before, but irresistible from anyone with a record like this. Thirty years | between them this time, and Barrie won’t be Barrie if there aren’t moments of impatience with so much faith. and trust. The phase is on its way where sometimes it must be as if he had conjured up something almost too cverwhelming, and must even show that this feeling is there, But that’s only on the surface, Beneath it, and only just beneath it, his love and loyalty are untouched. While as for Freyberg’s love and loyalty, they will never flicker for ‘twenty and a-half more years. Neither of them ever says this, but they both knew that a secret relationship is involved. For, of course, if Barrie had ever had a son, it would have been he who was the bravest man in the world."