THE BELOVED CAPTAIN.
E came in the early days, when we were still at recruit drill under the hot September sun. Tall, erect, smiling: so we first saw him, and so he remained to the last. At the start he knew as little of soldiering as we did. He used to watch us being drilled by the sergeant ; but his manner of watching was his own. He never looked bored. He was learning just as much as we were, in fact more. He was learning his job, and from the first he saw that his job was something more than giving the correct orders. His job was to lead us. So as he watched he noted many things, and never found the time hang heavy on his hands. He watched our evolutions, noting the right orders to secure the desired result : he watched for the right manner of command, the manner which produced the most prompt response to an order : and he watched every one of us. We were his men. Already he took an almost paternal .interest in us. He noted the men who tried hard but were naturally slow and awkward. He distinguished them from those who were inattentive and bored. He marked down the keen and efficient among us. Most of all he observed those who were subject to moods, who were willing one day and sulky the next. These were the ones who were to turn the scale. If only he could get these on his side, the battle would he won.
For a few days he just watched. Then he started work. He picked out some of the most awkward ones, and, accompanied by a corporal, marched them away by themselves. Ingenuously he explained that he did not know much himself yet ; but he Thought that they might get on better if they drilled by them- selves a bit, and that if he helped them, and they helped him, they would soon learn. His confidence was infections. He looked at them, and they looked at him, and the men pulled themselves together and determined to do their best. Their best surprised themselves. His Patience was inexhaustible. His simplicity could not fail to be understood. His keenness and optimism carried all with them. Very soon the awkward squad found themselves awkward no longer ; and soon after that thej ceased to be a squad, and went back to the platoon.
Then he started to drill the platoon, with the sergeant standing by to point out his mistakes. Of course he made mistakes, and
when that happened he never minded admitting it. He would explain what mistakes he had made, and try again. The result was that we began to take almost as much interest and pride in his progress as he did in ours. We were his men, and he was our leader. We felt that he was a credit to us, and we resolved to be a credit to him. There was a bond of mutual confidence and affection between us, which grew stronger and stronger as the months passed. He had a smile for almost every one ; but we thought that he had a different smile for us. We looked for it, and were never disappointed. On parade, as long as we were trying, his smile encouraged us. Off parade, if we passed hint and saluted, his eyes looked straight into our own, and his smile greeted us. It was a wonderful thing, that smile of his. It was somehow worth living for and worth working for. It bucked one up when one was bored or tired. It seemed to make one look at things from a different point of view, a finer point of view, his point of view. There was nothing feeble or weak about it. It was not monotonous like the smile of "sunny Jim." It meant something. It meant that we were his men, and that he was proud of us, and sure that we were going to do damned well —better than any of the other platoons. And it made us determined that we would. When we failed him, when he was disappointed in us, he did not smile. He did not rage or curse; He just looked disappointed, and that made us feel far more savage with ourselves than any amount of swearing -would have done. He made us feel that we were not playing the game by him. It was not what he said He was never very good at talking. It was just how he looked. And his look of dis- pleasure and disappointment was a thing that we would do anything to avoid. The fact was that he had won his way into our affections. We loved him. And there isn't anything stronger than love, when all's said and done.
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tall, He was good to look on. He was big and ta , and held himself upright. His eyes looked his own height. He moved with the grace of an athlete. His skin was tanned by a whole- some outdoor life, and his eyes were clear and wide open. Physically he was a prince among men. We used to notice, as we marched along the road and passed other officers, that they always looked pleased to see him. They weted him with a cordiality which was reserved for him. Even the General seemed to have singled him out, and cast an eye of special approval on him. Somehow, gentle though he was, he was never familiar. He had a kind of innate nobility which marked hint out as above us. He was not democratic. He was rather the justification for aristocracy. We all knew instinctively that he was our superior—a man of finer temper than ourselves, a " toff " in his own right. I suppose that that was why he could be so humble without loss of dignity. For he was humble too, if that is the right word, and I think it is. No trouble of OWN was too small for him to attend to. When we started route marches, for instance, and our feet were blistered and sore, as they often were at first, you would have thought that they were his own feet front the trouble he took. Of course after the march there was always an inspection of feet. That is the routine. But with him it was no mere routine. He came into our rooms, and if any one had a sore foot he would kneel down on the floor and look at it as carefully as if he had been a doctor. Then he would prescribe, and the remedies were ready to hand, being borne by the sergeant. If a blister had to be lanced, he would very likely lance it himself there and then, so as to make sure that it was done with a clean needle, and that no dirt was allowed to get in. There was no affectation about this, no striving after effect. It was simply that he felt that our feet were important., and that he knew that we were pretty careless. So he thought it best at the start to see to the matter himself. Nevertheless, there was in our eyes something almost religious about this care for our extremities. It seemed to have a touch of the Christ about it, and we loved and honoured hint the more.
We knew that we should lose him. For one thing, we knew that he would be promoted. It was our great hope that some day he would command the company. Also we knew that he
would get killed. He was so amazingly unself-conscious. For that reason we knew that he would be absolutely fearless. He would be so keen on the job in hand, and so anxious for his men, that he would forget about his own danger. So it proved. He was a Captain when we went out to the front. Whenever there was a tiresome job to be done, he was there, in charge. If ever there werea moment of danger, he was on the spot. If there were any particular part of the line where the shells were falling faster or the bombs dropping more thickly than in other parts, he was in it. It was not that he was conceited and imagined himself indispensable. It was just that he was so keen that the men should do their best, and act worthily of the regiment. He knew fellows hated turning out at night to dig, when they were in a "rest camp." He knew how tiresome the long march there and back, and the digging in the dark for an unknown purpose, were. He knew fellows would be inclined to grouse and shirk. So he felt that it was up to him to go, and show them that he thought it was a job worth doing. And the fact that he was there put a new complexion on the matter altogether. No one would shirk if he were there. No one would grumble so much either. What was good enough for him was good enough for us. If it were not too much trouble for him: to turn out, it was not too much trouble for us. He knew, too, how trying to the nerves it is to sit in a trench and be shelled. He knew what a temptation there is to move a bit further down the trench, and herd together in a bunch at what seems the safest end. He knew too the folly of it, and that it was not the thing to do—not done in the best regiments. So he went along to see that it did not happen, to see that the men stuck to their posts, and conquered their nerves. And as soon as we saw him we forgot our own anxiety. It was : "Move a bit further down, Sir. We're all right here ; but don't you go exposing of yourself." We didn't matter. We knew it then. We were just the ra.nk-and-file, bound to take risks. The company would get on all right without us. But the Captain, how was the company to get on without him ? To see him was to catch his point of view, to forget our own personal anxieties, and only to think of the company, and the regiment, and honour.
There was not one of us but would gladly have died for him. We longed for the chance to show him that. We weren't heroes. We never dreamed about the V.C. But to save the Captain we would have earned it ten times over, and never have cared a button whether we got it or not. We never got the chance, worse luck. It was all the other way. We were holding some trenches which were about as unhealthy as trenches can be. The Beaches were only a few yards away, and were well supplied with trench mortars. We hadn't got any at that time. Bombs and air torpedoes were dropping round us all day. Of course the Captain was there. It seemed as if he couldn't keep away. A torpedo fell into the trench, and buried some of our chaps. The fellows next to them ran to dig them out. Of course he was one of the first. Then came another torpedo in the same place. That was the end.
But he lives. Somehow he lives. And we who knew him do not forget. We feel his eyes on us. We still work for that wonderful smile of his. There are not many of the old lot left now ; but I think that those who went West have seen him. When they got to the other side I think they were met. Some one said : "Well done, good and faithful servant," and as they knelt before that gracious, pierced figure, I reckon they saw near by the Captain's smile. Anyway, in that faith let me die, if death should come my way ; and so, I think, shall I die
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