FICTION.
THE SHILLING SOLDIERS.•
A JUDICIOUS critic has recently illustrated by examples the danger of the use of superlatives, but, disregarding his Caution, we have no hesitation in saying that these are the finest short stories of the war we have yet come across. They are, unhappily, the last work of their author, for Denis Garstin, after seeing a great deal of hard fighting on the Western Front in 1915 and 1916, and being employed in propagandist and diplomatic work in Petro- grad and Moscow up to July of this year, was then summoned to the North of Russia, fell gallantly fighting in the Onega Expedition, and was buried at Archangel on August 18th. The tragedy of his end was enhanced by the fact, as Mr. Hugh Walpole tells us in his Preface, that he was killed by the people he loved. Be had spent four years in the Grimes before the war, had welcomed the Revolution, and never lost hope that the first impulse would find its right channel at last, and that all the terrors of Bolshevism and the horrors that accompanied it were mere spate and turmoil on the surface of the current that flowed strong and certain to its appointed destiny." He was, in ehort, P.D idealist., and his idealism shines throughout these wonderful Studies and sketches of trench warfare on the Western Front. Mr. Walpole is right in insisting on the hard, definite realism of his pictures. If there is any danger of our over forgetting what men and officers suffered and endured in the trenches on the Somme, these pages will suffice to recall the long agony of the ordeal. Yet the recital, though appalling, never disgusts. And it is almost entirely free from the spirit of resentment. Only once, in the last study in the book, is the view expressed that the old men at home complacently acquiesce in the sacrifice of the young and salve their consciences by wishing they were young enough to come out and join them. But this is only a Faring mood, not a continuous reproach. The officer who is the hero of the episode is a Socialist, but of a noble type. He is fond of his mother-officers, but " they can look after themselves" But my men ... They've got to go on trusting in our class at home until they die . . . They've got to go on fighting while men at home—fat, stupid, old men—urge them on. You'd think they needed urging. Ye gods ! And even if they slid, the insolence of one man urging another to go and fight for loin ! . . . At home, of course, they'd call me a Peace Crank. Well, were an anny of Peace Cranks—only we want a lasting peace—one based on ideals, 'cos they are the only things that are lasting.' It Was this remark that made me think. The certainty be bad of his own death, and the freedom of thought this certainty gave him, rather shocked me at first. But then, it was his very detachment that made his point of view so unassailable. In his own mind he was dead already, and he wanted to know in whose hands, as it were, he WAS leaving his men."
When the narrator hinted that this was all rather Socialistic, Tony Wills retorted that it paid officers to look after their men, that it was done by all the best regiments, that it was an ideal, and sound practical common-sense to boot
" Why can't it be done in business ?---and all 'through our social system? I believe in the officer class. If only I thought you'd stick together afterwards as you do now, I'd die happy. And you could, so jolly easily, if you thought. But you'll lose confidence when you get home, and start class wars again."
The passages we have quoted are not representative of the writer's gifts as a narrator or observer, of his poetic vision, or his overwhelming simplicity in dealing with terrific scones ; but they are typical of the generous spirit of fellowship which animated him. The brotherhood of the New Armies has had no more faithful delineator than Denis Geeslin, nor have we anywhere seen within such brief compass more varied illustrations of the strange psychology of fear and its magnificent incon- sistencies than in "Into Action," "The Runaway," and "The Diary of a Timid Man." The picture of "Madame Defarge," the keeper of a village shop, time after time warned to leave, but still sitting in her shop, "knitting and muttering and selling vegetables," unable to comprehend tho British soldier but full of confidence in him, is an unforgettable study of the passionate heroism of the Frenchwoman. "The Epic of Trooper Kin- " and "Love o' Woman" reveal humour of a fresh and uncommon order. Criticism is always invidious in the face of high aims and sincerity ; here it is disarmed by the triumphant achievement of one who added to a fine record in the field exceptional gifts as an artist and a singular nobility of spirit.
sa!,,,ST,1011.s.Giest. Crane. 511th • Prance by /111C• Wiapole. READADIA NOVEL.S.—The Lady front Long Acre. By Victor Bridges. (Mille and Boon. 66.)—A romance of a plan which has been considered old-fashioned for so long that it has almost the merit of novelty. The heroine is a Princess of the reigning House of a State in South-Eastern Europe, and the adventures, of which there are many, both by sea and land, deal with revo- lutions and counter-revolutions in the above State, not with the Great War.—The Amembly. By Lord Frederic Hamilton. (Hurst and Blaekett. 6e. 9d.)—A story of the redemption, through the war, of a man who was a card cheat while at Oxford, and who had fled after his exposure and disgrace to the Argentine. —Candlelight. By Mrs. Henry Dudeney. (Same publishers. 6s.)--A clever but disagreeable story, dealing with a woman who trafficked in the souls of men.
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