Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (706 page)

‘Let him be! Let him be!’ the Doctor called professionally. The man jerked and mouthed, and at last mumbled something unintelligible even to his friend, but a small dark P.M. pushed forward importantly.

‘It iss all right,’ he said. ‘He wants to say — ’ he spat out some yard-long Welsh name, adding, ‘That means Pembroke Docks, Worshipful Sir. We haf good Masons in Wales, too.’ The silent man nodded approval.

‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, quite unmoved. ‘It happens that way sometimes. Hespere panta fereis, isn’t it? The Star brings ‘em all home. I must get a note of that fellow’s case after Lodge. I saw you didn’t care for music,’ he went on, ‘but I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with a little more. It’s a paraphrase from Micah. Our organist arranged it. We sing it antiphonally, as a sort of dismissal.’

Even I could appreciate what followed. The singing seemed confined to half-a-dozen trained voices answering each other till the last line, when the full Lodge came in. I give it as I heard it:

‘We have showed thee, O Man.

  What is good.

What doth the Lord require of us?

Or Conscience’ self desire of us?

  But to do justly-

  But to love mercy.

And to walk humbly with our God.

  As every Mason should.’

Then we were played and sung out to the quaint tune of the ‘Entered Apprentices’ Song.’ I noticed that the regular Brethren of the Lodge did not begin to take off their regalia till the lines

‘Great Kings, Dukes, and Lords

Have laid down their swords.’

They moved into the ante-room, now set for the Banquet, on the verse

  ‘Antiquity’s pride

  We have on our side.

Which maketh men just in their station.’

The Brother (a big-boned clergyman) that I found myself next to at table told me the custom was ‘a fond thing vainly invented’ on the strength of some old legend. He laid down that Masonry should be regarded as an ‘intellectual abstraction.’ An Officer of Engineers disagreed with him, and told us how in Flanders, a year before, some ten or twelve Brethren held Lodge in what was left of a Church. Save for the Emblems of Mortality and plenty of rough ashlars, there was no furniture.

‘I warrant you weren’t a bit the worse for that,’ said the Clergyman. ‘The idea should be enough without trappings.’

‘But it wasn’t,’ said the other. ‘We took a lot of trouble to make our regalia out of camouflage-stuff that we’d pinched, and we manufactured our jewels from old metal. I’ve got the set now. It kept us happy for weeks.’

‘Ye were absolutely irregular an’ unauthorised. Whaur was your Warrant?’ said the Brother from the Military Lodge. ‘Grand Lodge ought to take steps against — ’

‘If Grand Lodge had any sense,’ a private three places up our table broke in, ‘it ‘ud warrant travelling Lodges at the front and attach first-class lecturers to ‘em.’

‘Wad ye confer degrees promiscuously?’ said the scandalised Scot.

‘Every time a man asked, of course. You’d have half the Army in.’

The speaker played with the idea for a little while, and proved that, on the lowest scale of fees, Grand Lodge would get huge revenues.

‘I believe,’ said the Engineer Officer thoughtfully, ‘I could design a complete travelling Lodge outfit under forty pounds weight.’

‘Ye’re wrong. I’ll prove it. We’ve tried ourselves,’ said the Military Lodge man; and they went at it together across the table, each with his own note-book.

The ‘Banquet’ was simplicity itself. Many of us ate in haste so as to get back to barracks or hospitals, but now and again a Brother came in from the outer darkness to fill a chair and empty a plate. These were Brethren who had been there before and needed no examination.

One man lurched in-helmet, Flanders mud, accoutrements and all-fresh from the leave-train.

‘‘Got two hours to wait for my train,’ he explained. ‘I remembered your night, though. My God, this is good!’

‘What is your train and from what station?’ said the Clergyman precisely. ‘Very well. What will you have to eat?’

‘Anything. Everything. I’ve thrown up a month’s rations in the Channel.’

He stoked himself for ten minutes without a word. Then, without a word, his face fell forward. The Clergyman had him by one already limp arm and steered him to a couch, where ho dropped and snored. No one took the trouble to turn round.

‘Is that usual too?’ I asked.

‘Why not?’ said the Clergyman. ‘I’m on duty to-night to wake them for their trains. They do not respect the Cloth on those occasions.’ He turned his broad back on me and continued his discussion with a Brother from Aberdeen by way of Mitylene where, in the intervals of mine-sweeping, he had evolved a complete theory of the Revelation of St. John the Divine in the Island of Patmos.

I fell into the hands of a Sergeant-Instructor of Machine Guns-by profession a designer of ladies’ dresses. He told me that Englishwomen as a class ‘lose on their corsets what they make on their clothes,’ and that ‘Satan himself can’t save a woman who wears thirty-shilling corsets under a thirty-guinea costume.’ Here, to my grief, he was buttonholed by a zealous Lieutenant of his own branch, and became a Sergeant again all in one click.

I drifted back and forth, studying the prints on the walls and the Masonic collection in the cases, while I listened to the inconceivable talk all round me. Little by little the company thinned, till at last there were only a dozen or so of us left. We gathered at the end of a table near the fire, the night-bird from Flanders trumpeting lustily into the hollow of his helmet, which some one had tipped over his face.

‘And how did it go with you?’ said the Doctor.

‘It was like a new world,’ I answered.

‘That’s what it is really.’ Brother Burges returned the gold pince-nez to their case and reshipped his silver spectacles. ‘Or that’s what it might be made with a little trouble. When I think of the possibilities of the Craft at this juncture I wonder — ’ He stared into the fire.

‘I wonder, too,’ said the Sergeant-Major slowly, ‘but-on the whole-I’m inclined to agree with you. We could do much with Masonry.’

‘As an aid-as an aid-not as a substitute for Religion,’ the Clergyman snapped.

‘Oh, Lord! Can’t we give Religion a rest for a bit?’ the Doctor muttered. ‘It hasn’t done so-I beg your pardon all round.’

The Clergyman was bristling. ‘Kamerad!’ the wise Sergeant-Major went on, both hands up. ‘Certainly not as a substitute for a creed, but as an average plan of life. What I’ve seen at the front makes me sure of it.’

Brother Burges came out of his muse. ‘There ought to be a dozen- twenty-other Lodges in London every night; conferring degrees too, as well as instruction. Why shouldn’t the young men join? They practise what we’re always preaching. Well! Well! We must all do what we can. What’s the use of old Masons if they can’t give a little help along their own lines?’

‘Exactly,’ said the Sergeant-Major, turning on the Doctor. ‘And what’s the darn use of a Brother if he isn’t allowed to help?’

‘Have it your own way then,’ said the Doctor testily. He had evidently been approached before. He took something the Sergeant-Major handed to him and pocketed it with a nod. ‘I was wrong,’ he said to me, ‘when I boasted of our independence. They get round us sometimes. This,’ he slapped his pocket, ‘will give a banquet on Tuesday. We don’t usually feed at matinees. It will be a surprise. By the way, try another sandwich. The ham are best.’ He pushed me a plate.

‘They are,’ I said. ‘I’ve only had five or six. I’ve been looking for them.’

‘‘Glad you like them,’ said Brother Lemming. ‘Fed him myself, cured him myself-at my little place in Berkshire. His name was Charlemagne. By the way, Doc, am I to keep another one for next month?’

‘Of course,’ said the Doctor with his mouth full. ‘A little fatter than this chap, please. And don’t forget your promise about the pickled nasturtiums. They’re appreciated.’ Brother Lemming nodded above the pipe he had lit as we began a second supper. Suddenly the Clergyman, after a glance at the clock, scooped up half-a-dozen sandwiches from under my nose, put them into an oiled paper bag, and advanced cautiously towards the sleeper on the couch.

‘They wake rough sometimes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Nerves, y’know.’ The Clergyman tip-toed directly behind the man’s head, and at arm’s length rapped on the dome of the helmet. The man woke in one vivid streak, as the Clergyman stepped back, and grabbed for a rifle that was not there.

‘You’ve barely half an hour to catch your train.’ The Clergyman passed him the sandwiches. ‘Come along.’

‘You’re uncommonly kind and I’m very grateful,’ said the man, wriggling into his stiff straps. He followed his guide into the darkness after saluting.

‘Who’s that?’ said Lemming.

‘Can’t say,’ the Doctor returned indifferently. ‘He’s been here before. He’s evidently a P.M. of sorts.’

‘Well! Well!’ said Brother Burges, whose eyelids were drooping. ‘We must all do what we can. Isn’t it almost time to lock up?’

‘I wonder,’ said I, as we helped each other into our coats, ‘what would happen if Grand Lodge knew about all this.’

‘About what?’ Lemming turned on me quickly.

‘A Lodge of Instruction open three nights and two afternoons a week- and running a lodging-house as well. It’s all very nice, but it doesn’t strike me somehow as regulation.’

‘The point hasn’t been raised yet,’ said Lemming. ‘We’ll settle it after the war. Meantime we shall go on.’

‘There ought to be scores of them,’ Brother Burges repeated as we went out of the door. ‘All London’s full of the Craft, and no places for them to meet in. Think of the possibilities of it! Think what could have been done by Masonry through Masonry for all the world. I hope I’m not censorious, but it sometimes crosses my mind that Grand Lodge may have thrown away its chance in the war almost as much as the Church has.’

‘Lucky for you the Padre is taking that chap to King’s Cross,’ said Brother Lemming, ‘or he’d be down your throat. What really troubles him is our legal position under Masonic Law. I think he’ll inform on us one of these days. Well, good night, all.’ The Doctor and Lemming turned off together.

‘Yes,’ said Brother Burges, slipping his arm into mine. ‘Almost as much as the Church has. But perhaps I’m too much of a Ritualist.’

I said nothing. I was speculating how soon I could steal a march on the Clergyman and inform against ‘Faith and Works No. 5837 E.C.’

To the Companions

Horace, Ode 17, Bk. V.

HOW comes it that, at even-tide.

  When level beams should show most truth.

Man, failing, takes unfailing pride

  In memories of his frolic youth?

Venus and Liber fill their hour;

  The games engage, the law-courts prove;

Till hardened life breeds love of power

  Or Avarice, Age’s final love.

Yet at the end, these comfort not —

  Nor any triumph Fate decrees-

Compared with glorious, unforgot —

  ten innocent enormities

Of frontless days before the beard.

  When, instant on the casual jest.

The God Himself of Mirth appeared

  And snatched us to His heaving breast.

And we-not caring who He was

  But certain He would come again —

Accepted all He brought to pass

  As Gods accept the lives of men...

Then He withdrew from sight and speech.

  Nor left a shrine. How comes it now.

While Charon’s keel grates on the beach.

  He calls so clear: ‘Rememberest thou?’?

The United Idolaters

HIS name was Brownell and his reign was brief. He came from the Central Anglican Scholastic Agency, a soured, clever, reddish man picked up by the Head at the very last moment of the summer holidays in default of Macrea (of Macrea’s House) who wired from Switzerland that he had smashed a knee mountaineering, and would not be available that term.

Looking back at the affair, one sees that the Head should have warned Mr. Brownell of the College’s outstanding peculiarity, instead of leaving him to discover it for himself the first day of the term, when he went for a walk to the beach, and saw ‘Potiphar’ Mullins, Head of Games, smoking without conceal on the sands. ‘Pot,’ having the whole of the Autumn Football challenges, acceptances, and Fifteen reconstructions to work out, did not at first comprehend Mr. Brownell’s shrill cry of: ‘You’re smoking! You’re smoking, sir!’ but he removed his pipe, and answered, placably enough: ‘The Army Class is allowed to smoke, sir.’