Hirgen at 07:45, 19 September 2008

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Hirgen at 21:22, 7 September 2008

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<CENTER>XX 

HEROES AND HEROICS</CENTER>

 "FACILE descensus Averni," and the Avernus of the
journalist in war time is a fatal facility for writing heroics.
Everyone who has handled the pen of a scribe knows how the descent
comes about. A man sees or experiences something which cries out
for expression. He puts pen to paper, and the result is acclaimed
as a little masterpiece. "Write more," say his friends,
and he casts about for another theme which will bear the same
heroic treatment. He tries to reproduce the dramatic staccato
which came so naturally before; but this time the inspiration
is lacking, the heroics are spurious, and the result is "journalese."
His heroics don't ring true. What cant is to religion, they are
to heroism. They take what is fine and rare and make it cheap.

 The typical Englishman hates heroics. He regards them as un-English.
If he has done a fine action the last thing that he wants is for
the fact to be exploited, advertised. It is not exactly modesty
that prompts his instinct for reticence; it is something nearer
akin to reverence. He does not want his pearls cast before swine.
He knows that the beauty of a fine action is like the bloom of
the wild flower, elusive, mystical. It will not survive the touch
of the hot, greasy hands that would pluck the flower from its
root and hawk it in the street. So when the "serious"
journalist takes to heroics the typical Englishman takes refuge
in satire, on exactly the same principle as when false sentiment
invades the drama he abandons it for musical comedy.

 The satirist always claims to be a realist, though not everyone
will admit his title. He mocks at the heroic, and says that he
will show you the real thing. In war time no one can afford to
be a satirist who has not done his bit, a fact which gives him
an additional weight. Men like Captain Bairnsfather of the Bystander
and "Henry" of Punch have earned the right
to mock, and in their mockery they often get closer to the portrayal
of authentic heroism than do their more idealistic brethren. Take
Bairnsfather's picture of two Tommies sitting in a dug-out, while
their parapet is being blown to smithereens about a yard away.
It bears the legend, "There goes our blinkin' parapet again!"
The 'eroes in the dug-out are about as unheroic in appearance
as it is possible to imagine. They are simply a pair of stolid,
unimaginative, intensely prosaic Tommies of the British workman
type. They have low foreheads and bulgy eyes, " tooth-brush"
mustaches and double chins; their hair is untidy, and one of them
is smoking a clay pipe. It is obvious that they are blasphemously
fed-up. Of course they are not really typical at all. They are
much too prosaic and unimaginative. But the picture does bring
home to you that the fellows in the trenches are very ordinary
people after all, which is a fact that folk at home are very apt
to overlook. And at the same time, though the realism is too sordid
to be quite true to life, it cannot hide the fact that the stoicism
of the two heroes is rather heroic, in spite of their obvious
lack of any sense of the dramatic.

 Bairnsfather's sketches represent the extreme reaction from
the heroic. His trench heroes are so animal in type and expression
as to be positively repulsive. As the editor says in his introduction,
"the book will be a standing reminder of the ingloriousness
of war, its preposterous absurdity, and of its futility as a means
of settling the affairs of nations." Yet for that very reason
it is an incomplete picture of war. It is perfectly true, and
it is a good thing that we should realize it, that the majority
of men go through the most terrific experiences without ever becoming
articulate. For every Englishman who philosophizes there are a
hundred who don't. For every soldier who prays there are a thousand
who don't. But there is hardly a man who will not return from
the war bigger than when he left home. His language may have deteriorated.
His "views" on religion and morals may have remained
unchanged. He may be rougher in manner. But it will not be for
nothing that he has learned to endure hardship without making
a song about it, that he has risked his life for righteousness'
sake, that he has bound up the wounds of his mates, and shared
with them his meagre rations. We who have served in the ranks
of "the first hundred thousand" will want to remember
something more than the ingloriousness of war. We shall want to
remember how adversity made men unselfish, and pain found them
tender, and danger found them brave, and loyalty made them heroic.
The fighting man is a very ordinary person, that's granted; but
he has shown that the ordinary person can rise to unexpected heights
of generosity and self-sacrifice.

 The fact is that neither heroics nor satire are a completely
satisfactory record of what we shall want to remember of this
war. Least of all does the third type of war journalism satisfy---that
of the lady who writes in the society paper of her "sweet
ickle tempies with the curly eyebrows," and her "darling
soldier-lad with the brave, merry smile."

 Whether the Press forms or reflects public opinion is a moot
point; but there is certainly an intimate correspondence between
the two, as the soldier who is sent to "Blighty" finds
to his cost. The society journalist pets him, the "serious"'
journalist writes heroics about him, and the satirist makes fun
of the heroics. He looks in vain for a sane recognition that he
has earned the right to be taken seriously as a man. So, too,
the society lady of a certain sort pets him, has him to tea at
the "Cri," or invites him to Berkeley Square. The larger
public lionizes him., gives him concerts and lusty cheers, takes
his photo at every possible opportunity, and provides him with
unlimited tobacco and gramophones. While the authorities satirize
the lionizers by treating him exactly as if he really was the
creature in Bairnsfather's sketches---a gross, brainless, animal
fool, who cannot be trusted. This is all very well. I suppose
that most men like to be petted by a pretty woman, specially if
she has a handle to her name, though the charm soon wears off.
Being lionized is boring, but has solid advantages. Satire is
amusing on paper, though infuriating when translated into action.
Very soon, however, the wounded soldier begins to long to be less
petted, less lionized, and instead to be treated as a rational
being who is entitled to a certain elementary respect.

 One can only speak from personal observation. One place differs
from another. But from what the writer has seen and experienced
he judges that the one thing which a wounded soldier cannot expect
is to be treated as a man. He is sent to "Blighty."
He arrives at a hospital. His chief pleasure, oddly enough, lies
in the prospect of seeing something of his relations and friends.
He is surprised and indignant when he finds that he is only allowed
to see visitors of his own choice two at a time, for two hours,
twice a week. On the other five days he has to put up with the
licensed visitors of the hospital. They may be very elevating
and amiable people; but he feels no conceivable interest in them.
He is still further dismayed when he discovers that under no circumstances
may he visit his home while he is a patient. He may go to tea
with Lady Snooks, or the Duchess of Downshire; but not with his
wife or his mother. The writer's neighbor in the hospital ward
was a case in point. He was a man of about thirty who, at the
outbreak of war, was holding a responsible position in Sydney.
He had all the self-respect which is typical of the colonial of
even a few years' standing. He was receiving ten minutes' electrical
treatment per diem, with a view to restoring sensation to one
of his hands. Otherwise he was able-bodied. His father lived within
twenty minutes' walk of the hospital; but not only was he not
allowed to live at home and attend as an out-patient, he was not
even allowed to visit his home. He was told that the treatment
would have to be continued for some six months, and meanwhile
he must be a prisoner in the hospital. At the V.A.D. convalescent
home to which the writer was subsequently transferred, and which
was regulated from the hospital, there were several married men
whose homes were within reach. They were absolutely forbidden
to visit them. One man, who had been in hospital for nine months
without ever going home, was so disgusted that he eventually took
French leave for a couple of days. On his return he was put in
the punishment ward of the main hospital, where he was deprived
of tobacco and visitors, and was informed that when he was discharged
he would be sent to his battalion for punishment! His comment
was, "You'll see; when this war is over it will be just as
it was after South Africa. We shall be so much dirt." When
we did leave the grounds it had to be in the conspicuous garb,
of a military convalescent, that all men might stare, and under
the escort of a nurse. Many a quiet, sensible fellow preferred
not to go out at all.

 Another example of the humiliation to which wounded soldiers
are subject refers to their difficulty in obtaining their arrears
of pay. One man, who had got the eight days' furlough to which
a soldier is entitled on leaving hospital, could only obtain twenty-four
shillings "advance of pay," though entitled to many
pounds. It barely covered his train fare, and left him nothing
for paying his living expenses (and his relations were very poor)
or for pocket money. The Army is the only profession which I know
in which a man receives, not the money to which he is entitled,
but such proportion of it as the authorities like to disburse.

 This is how the authorities satirize the lionizers, and not
all the petting and the lionizing in the world will compensate
for the denial of the elementary rights of a man., the right to
choose his own visitors, to visit his own home, and to receive
the money which he has earned.

 A man soon tires of being petted and lionized, and craves in
vain for the sane respect which is a man's due.

 I am aware that there are many hospitals where soldiers are
treated much more rationally, and I have never heard that they
have abused their reasonable liberty. Nevertheless I feel that
it is worth while to utter a protest against the state of affairs
described above because it is, after all, so typical of the general
failure of the Press, the public, and the powers that be to recognize
that the soldier who has fought for his country has earned the
right to be regarded as a man. He doesn't want to be petted. Heroics
nauseate him. He is not a child or a hero. He is just a man who
has done his duty, and he wants a man's due.

 It is desirable that soldiers should receive their due now;
but it is much more vitally important that when the war is over,
and the craze for petting and lionizing has died down, it should
be recognized that the soldier who has fought for his country
is something more than a pet that has lost his popularity, and
a lion that has ceased to roar. There is grave danger that all
that will survive of the present mixed attitude towards the soldier
will be the attitude of authority, which regards him as an irresponsible
animal. For after all, this attitude is just that which before
the war poisoned the whole administration of charity, and the
whole direction of philanthropy. Before the war a cry was heard,
"We don't want charity, we want the right to live a wholesome
life." Too often the reply of the "upper classes"
was to denounce the "ingratitude" of the poor. The cry
that we hear now---"We are not pets or lions, but men"---is
the same cry in a new guise. It is the cry of the working classes
for a sane respect. Be sure that when the war is over that cry
will be heard no less strongly, for the working classes have proved
their manhood on the field of honor. In this time of trouble and
good-will we have the chance to redeem the error of the past,
and to lay the foundation of a nobler policy by adopting a saner,
a wider, a more generous outlook; but we seem to be in a fair
way to intensifying our error, and laying up endless difficulties
in the days that are to come.

XX HEROES AND HEROICS - Revision history

Hirgen at 07:45, 19 September 2008

Hirgen at 21:22, 7 September 2008