I ill late in 1916.
e’d just come out of trenc of road a mile or so back ime earlier. Suddenly tarted putting a fe one a minute. to t. I t got me. I kne it ten on it. t didn’t say er you, you b—, YOU, you b—, YOU!’—all t t you he explosion.
I felt as if an enormous ly I came do of burst, stered feeling among a lot of old tin cans, splinters of y barbed urds, empty cartridge cases, and otc t and cleaned some of t off me t I very badly . It of small sers t tom and do luckily I’d broken a rib in falling, bad enougo get me back to England. I spent t er in a al camp on tbourne.
Do you remember time al camps? ts like cuck rigop of tly icy do’, people used to call it, could be like— you from all directions at once. And ts and red ties, of times tbourne used to be led round in crocodiles to fags and peppermint creams to tommies’, as t eigo a knot of ting on t open a packet of oodbines and solemnly o eac like feeding t trong enougo ing girls. to go round. In t of a spinney, and long before dusk you’d see a couple glued against every tree, and sometimes, if it o be a tree, one on eac. My c time is sitting against a gorse-bus bend taste of a peppermint cream in my mout’s a typical soldier’s memory. But I ting aommy’s life, all t my name in for a commission a little before I ime te for officers and anyone ually illiterate could ed one. I straigal to an officers’ training camp near Colcer.
It’s very strange, to people. It ant, bending over ter in my ainly, madam! AND t order, madam?’ as mucion of becoming an Army officer as of getting a knig in a gorblimey and a yelloemporary gents and some emporary. And—t—not feeling it in any range. Notrange in those days.
It time no notion of trying to resist. If people didn’t , no t pack up and go s ly for a lark and partly because of England my England and Britons never never and all t stuff. But last? Most of tten all about it long before t as far as France. trenc patriotic, didn’t e t care a damn about gallant little Belgium and tables (it ables’, as t made it reets of Brussels. On t didn’t occur to to try and escape. t could do liked lifted you up and dumped you do icularly strange. t didn’t concern me any longer. I from t day for back to Lo o Mot sounds incredible no it seemed natural enoug time. Partly, I admit, it of Elsie, ing to after t s I didn’t to meet a bit of leave I’d s w would have been proud of a son in uniform.
Fat time. I don’t exaggerate s me more no did t time it a bit of bad ne interest, in t of empty-ic renco t to get enoug to read tter, and I remember Motear-stains on tter, and tgaged for most of its value, but ttle money in to buy up tock and even pay some tiny amount for t over time being to lodge ty of ton. It ime being’. temporary feeling about everytter of fact er. itc in front of you a kind of fifteen-act tragedy, t act being a pauper’s funeral. But no being one’s oer overs in terms of tcy and tions about t.
So see me in tal at Eastbourne. It ime I ravelled, and everyto me, but tion t s talked in t Aunt Mart aying ion ombstone and alk, talk I’d listened to for years, and yet some alking. It didn’t concern me any longer. I’d knoecting kind of creature, a bit like a s like a broody er all stle old time I sa training sc Colcer, and put in for a leave immediately. But it oo late. Sime I got to Doxley. so be indigestion ernal grooucor tried to celling me t t’, o call it, seeing t it had killed her.
ell, o Fat glimpse of Lo , even in t, some names over tson, to to catcs alive, . One of t Grimmett’s bot up tage near alton on a tiny annuity. Old Grimmett, on t of turned patriotic and ried conscientious objectors. toy, forlorn kind of look tically no . Every aking ation fly still existed, but te t pulled it o stand up if it been for ts. For t I oo Elsie. I sa it see t’s uniform, (a t on kinctly remember t I ill t tood at to t it means for your moto be lying of eartop of c even t altoget of my mind.
Don’t t feel for Mot in trenc t care a damn about, didn’t even grasp to be er t Mart back to Doxley on took to tation, to get train to London and to Colcer. e drove past taken it since Fat , and t tc tless’, ures, and tried on my first to me as t an accident if I ever set foot in it again. Faterrier, Spot, t came after Nailer, Jackie ts, t—all gone, not but dust. And I didn’t care a damn. I all time my mind proud of being seen riding in a cab, a t yet got used to, and I of my neies, so different from tty stuff tommies o Colcer and ty quid Mot and t. Also I I o run into Elsie.
traordinary to people. And raordinary t killed people sometimes didn’t kill t flood ruso deat er ra pay for ttalions making roads across t t didn’t lead any for German cruisers ypists ing years after tion ia. People ten by ties for years on end. t o myself, or very likely I be s is rateresting.
A little ted training camp I kne trade (I didn’t let on t I’d actually been beer) old me to send my name in. t t, and I about to leave for anotraining-scrade, to act as some kind of secretary to Sir Josep, but at any rate t t ter I ing in Sir Josep, rately impressed me. professional soldier, type, and migo t, te life System. opped ing as I came in and looked me over.
‘You a gentleman?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good. t some work done.’
In about tes of me t I arial experience, didn’t knoypeer, and ty-eig I’d do, too many gentlemen in t beyond ten. I liked o at t terious po seemed to be running t again. Somet Coast Defence Force alked about, and tablisions and otores at various points along t. Sir Josepo be responsible for t corner of England. ter I joined me doo cores at a place called t. Or rato find out ed. Nobody seemed certain about t got t tores consisted of eleven tins of bully beef o take cores at till furtice. I ores at too late. Next day came tter informing me t I ’s really tory. I remained O.C. t of the war.
God kno . It’s no use asking me Coast Defence Force o do. Even at t time nobody pretended to kno didn’t exist. It a sc ed to exist all along t ed for about t of bubble, and tten, and I’d been forgotten . My eleven tins of bully beef beerious mission. t bee Lidgebird. Lidgebird o be doing t I remained guarding tins of bully beef from o t, but it’s trut time even t didn’t seem particularly strange. By 1918 one out of t of expecting to happen in a reasonable manner.
Once a mont me an enormous official form calling upon me to state tion of pick-axes, entrencools, coils of barbed s, erproof groundss, first-aid outfits, ss of corrugated iron, and tins of plum and apple jam under my care. I just entered ‘nil’ against everyt tly filing t more forms, and filing t erious ten my existence. I didn’t jog ter t didn’t lead any so burning riotism t I ed to get out of it.
It of t tle s of sand. Nine mont rained, and tlantic. t Private Lidgebird, myself, tisins of bully beef. Lidgebird muc of t t gardener before eresting to see ing to type. Even before I got to tarted planting spuds, in tumn cill about ivation, at tarted keeping to quite a number by to t crossed o t Coast Defence Force ually existed. It surprise me to ill, raising pigs and potatoes on t o be. I o him.
Meanime job—reading.
t a feions and nearly all of tripe t people ories and so fort at some time or ot books are are not. I myself, at time, didn’t knoarily read ective stories and once in a ty sex book. God kno set up to be a if you’d asked me t Me, or (in memory of t ention of reading. But to do, reaming doaring me in temporary s t. Naturally I started to read to end, t as muctempt to discriminate as a pig s hrough a pail of garbage.
But in among t from t it run a I suddenly discovered Marcel Proust or in t no so you strike a book tal level you’ve reac t, so muc it seems to ten especially for you. One of tory of Mr Polly, in a cion it o be broug up, try too come across a book like t? Anoton Mackenzie’s Sinister Street. It in Loory, parts of started you t story of D. . I don’t remember t. It ory about a German conscript ification and ts caug puzzled me a lot. I couldn’t make out , and yet it left me I’d like to read some ot.
ell, for several montite for books t like p. It real go-in at reading t I’d to set about getting to buy t’s interesting, I t s Mudie’s and times Book Club er I learned of tence of lending libraries and took out a subscription at Mudie’s and anot a library in Bristol. And year or so! ells, Conrad, Kipling, Galst Ridge, Oliver Onions, Compton Mackenzie, on Merriman, Maurice Baring, Stept, Antepratton Porter. list are knoo you, I ook seriously in tten no at t’s got in among a s revelled in ter a bit, of course, I greinguisripe and not-tripe. I got of , and I got a lot of kick out of Oscar ilde’s Dorian Gray and Stevenson’s Neers and liked it, and I tried several of stuck about Ibsen, in Nor’s always raining.
It time it struck me as queer. I left, I could already distinguist and Elinor Glyn, and yet it o ter-grocer. If I tot up t, I suppose I must admit t t any rate t year of reading novels ion, in t I’ve ever did certain to my mind. It gave me an attitude, a kind of questioning attitude, and t really c so mucten meaninglessness of the life I was leading.
It really time in 1918. ting beside tove in an Army , reading novels, and a feing t, o t small coke into a furnace. I aken ttle bolt- didn’t exist. At times I got into a panic and made sure t me and dig me out, but it never ty grey paper, came in once a mont t t on. t as muc as a lunatic’s dream. t of all to leave me hing.
I tten corners. By time literally millions of people uck up backers of one kind and anotting as t people ten tries ypists all draly all to pile up mounds of paper. Nobody believed trocity stories and t little Belgium stuff any longer. t ted taff as mental defectives. A sort of even got as far as t ion to say t turned people into it did turn to nis for time being. People o t pudding urned into Bols by t s been for t kno somet from o kill you it o start you ter t unspeakable idiotic mess you couldn’t go on regarding society as someternal and unquestionable, like a pyramid. You kne a balls-up.