FICTION.
THE GREAT TAB DOPE.*
Or the group of brilliant soldier-authors who have graduated in " Maga's " pages, "Ole Luk-Oie" has a place that is specially his own. He has many competitors in the command of vivid narrative, alert dialogue, or the contrivance of incident : his speciality, as revealed in "The Green Curve," is imaginative psychology as applied to the world of action, and though this gift is perhaps less conspicuously shown in his new volume, there is at least one excellent example of his method in the episode entitled "In the Valley" which vividly illustrates the peculiar qualities required of the mine-layer in land-warfare. The discovery of a ford by a young sapper and the urgent need of mining it form the basis of the story, but before we reach its critical stage there is a passage which, though written years ago, remains in its essentials entirely appropriate to the conditions which govern the present war "Fords can be denied to an enemy in many ways besides by being held and defended. One of the simplest is to sow them with harrows, ploughs, or wire fencing, or to construct barbed- wire entanglements under the water. But, distinctly annoying and offensive to troops in a hurry as such obstructions are, they are otherwise trivial, for they can be removed at leisure and their moral effect is negligible. When it is desired to add a minatory effect to the merely physical obstacle it is necessary to make an appeal to the nerves. This can best be done by explosives. It is a truism that in land warfare the value of mines and suchlike con- trivances of the sapper is almost entirely psychological. For every man actually damaged by their action hundreds suffer mentally either from the knowledge or the more suspicion of their existence. Indeed, the very rumour of their presence is sufficient to indnce an Agag-like method of progression. And not only does this apply to those for whose hurt the mines are intended ; it affects those whose duty it is to prepare them, since explosives have no diacrimination and are not respecters of persons. For the mine- layer in war, as for the active terrorist in peace, there is always the haunting dread of being hoist by his own petard. Dealing as he does with unstable and extremely violent chemical compounds and rough, improvised mechanisms, he literally carries his life in his hands, at his finger-tips, at his very toes. Too rough a touch, a stumble, and another life has to be written off the ledger of his side as 'expended.' Mine-laying demands the very highest form of bravery, the unemotional courage inspired by self-control, determination, and a sense of duty. The man undertaking it usually works with very few others, secretly and in obscure places. Neither one of a crowd, nor actually fighting, he is not inspired to gallantry by the presence of comrades, the enthusiasm or passion of the moment, or thei sheer lust of combat. There is no struggle with a living, sentient adversary to excite him. Excite- ment of a sort he has in plenty, but it is of a very, ono-sided nature, such as is afforded, by a cold-blooded contest against a ghostly enemy, which is quite unresponsive, quite undemonstra- tive, until the last moment. If the mine-layer wins in the struggle, though the result of his work may not affect anything, he has been through a far more severe trial than many a man who commits a gallant deed in the heat of action. But he is seldom acclaimed as a hero, for few know what Pile has accomplished. When he fails, the simple word 'Missing,' under which his name appears, will usually be a literally correct epitaph."
So, again, in the fine study of resolute heroism which closeS the volume "Ole Luk-Oie " shows how character which reveals itself in school games will assert itself on the larger fields of action. The boy who saved the game for his side in a football match saves the situation at the cost of his life in a groat air dueL It is a fine prose commentary on Sir Henry Newbolt's lyric on a similar theme. Excellent, again, from the point of view of characterization, as well as of narrative, are the episodes from the South African War, on the inner history of which they throw a great deal of light.
The monotony of the "potted meat" existence in a blockhouse is admirably drawn, with half a dozen well-etched portraits of different types—the miles gloriosus undone by his own special accomplishment as a marksman, the stout-hearted, conscien- tious but stupid sergeant, the over-zealous subaltern, and the shrewd but cautious C.O. A new lingua castrensis has been evolved in Flanders, as soldiers' letters from the front abun- dantly prove, but of the South African variety "Ole Luk-Oie " is a past-master. The mingled tedium and excite- ment of the blockhouse, wire-entanglement phase of the Boer War is finely summed up in the following passage "But behind this surface excitement lay the sensation of being permanently on guard. Though the acuteness of this feeling very • The Great Tab Dope: and 004. Seories.. BY "Ole Luk-Olo," London: Blaokwood and Sous. soon wore off when days and nights passed and nothing happened, it was always latent, in the background, and told on temper and nerves. One result of this was the many attacks of 'jumps' and the frequent paroxysms of shooting that took place after dark. These again, like the cry of 'wolf' repeated too often, led to apathy, to the fact that the sound of, distant firing at night was generally assumed to be the sign of a false alarm until it was proved to the contrary. The tension manifested itself in various ways. There was 'skyline' fever, which was specially strong in kopje country, and led to many aberration's, one of which was the historic order that men on picquet duty were strictly forbidden to strike matches on the skyline.' Physically, also, the life told, The diet NVELB monotonous ; the water, perforce stored out of bullet's reach in iron tanks under the floor and boiled as required, became flat and unprofitable; and the lack of exercise and the stuffiness of the sleeping quarters led to staleness. Windows were numerous, but they were small and high up, and gales which were strong enough to raise earache-producing draughts at breast-height did not disturb the air near floor-level. And by one of the most stringent commandments in the blockhouse deoalogue the sentry was the only man allowed to be outside at night. As succinctly expressed in another official command—possibly framed by the master of the art of saying exactly what is meant already quoted, —no man of a detachment was to sleep outside the blockhouse except the sentry on duty: There was not much variety in the fauna of that portion of South Africa where the war raged, and so little animal life was usually visible that the movements of any beast that did appear were studied with interest. The occasional ant-bear, and the frequent aesvogel wheeling lazily in the blue sky, were acquaintances—the latter an unwelcome one. But the little meerkats, which popped up out of their holes and begged, the conies, and the graceful fork-tailed takka talus whistling and tumbling head over heels as they flew, became old friends. Thomas Atkins, always a lover of animals, during the South African War became a student of wild life and tried to make a pet of every beast that 'rolled up,' from ostriches to spiders. For his comfort it was lucky that musk-rats, civet-oats, and skunks were not indigenous to the sub-continent. He, Atkins, is also a philosopher who, behind a deceptive mask of grousing, really makes the best of things more successfully than most men. Amongst any band of soldiers, however small, there are usually one or two who have sufficient of that saving sense of humour to extract comfort from the most unpromising circumstances. Often, very often, has the gloom of some desperately serious situation been relieved by the caustie commentary or apt remark jerked out between passing bullets from behind one boulder to another. If our men were to lose this asset, for it is a great asset, the outlook for our small battalions would indeed be dark."
"Ole Luk-Oie's " versatility is abundantly displayed in this volume. The story which gives its name to the collection is a rattling extravaganza. We have already illustrated his gift for handling the serious aspects of war in a serious vein. There remain his adventures in the field of the macabre, "The Sense of Vouch," a weird fantasia on "cinema" culture, which begins in a jocular vein, suddenly develops into nightmare, and ends with a rational explanation, and "The Culvert on the Summit," the most gruesome snake story we have ever read.
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