Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1611 page)

It was in 1915 that I managed to establish a secret correspondence with the British prisoners at Magdeburg. It was not very difficult to do, and I dare say others managed it as well as I, but it had the effect of cheering them by a little authentic news, for at that time they were only permitted to see German newspapers. It came about in this way. A dear friend of my wife’s, Miss Lily Loder Symonds, had a brother, Captain Willie Loder Symonds, of the Wiltshires, who had been wounded and taken in the stand of the 7th Brigade on the evening before Le Cateau. He was an ingenious fellow and had written home a letter which passed the German censor, because it seemed to consist in the description of a farm, but when read carefully it was clear that it was the conditions of himself and his comrades which he was discussing. It seemed to me that if a man used such an artifice he would be prepared for a similar one in a letter from home. I took one of my books, therefore, and beginning with the third chapter — I guessed the censor would examine the first — I put little needle-pricks under the various printed letters until I had spelled out all the news. I then sent the book and also a letter. In the letter I said that the book was, I feared, rather slow in the opening, but that from Chapter III onwards he might find it more interesting. That was as plain as I dared to make it. Loder Symonds missed the allusion altogether, but by good luck he showed the letter to Captain the Hon. Rupert Keppel, of the Guards, who had been taken at Landrecies. He smelled a rat, borrowed the book, and found my cipher. A message came back to his father, Lord Albemarle, to the effect that he hoped Conan Doyle would send some more books. This was sent on to me, and of course showed me that it was all right. From that time onwards every month or two I pricked off my bulletin, and a long job it was. Finally, I learned that the British papers were allowed for the prisoners, so that my budget was superfluous. However, for a year or two I think it was some solace to them, for I always made it as optimistic as truth would allow — or perhaps a little more so, just to get the average right.

I had some dealings with General French, but only one interview with him. No one can help feeling a deep respect for the soldier who relieved Kimberley and headed off Cronje, or for the man who bore the first hard thrust of the German spear.

My only interview with the General was at the Horse Guards, when he talked very clearly about the military position, though most of what he said as to the changes which modern tactics and heavy guns had caused was rather self-evident. “Your problem always is how to pass the wire and the machine guns. There is no way round. What is the good of talking of invading Austria from the south? You will find the same wire and the same machine guns. We may as well face it in Flanders as anywhere else.” This talk was shortly after Loos, when he had returned from the Army and was at the head of Home Defence. “If you want any point looked up for your history, mind you let me know and I will see that it is done.” This sounded very nice to me, who was in a perpetual state of wanting to know; but as a matter of fact I took it as a mere empty phrase, and so it proved when a week or two later I put it to the test. It was a simple question, but I never got any clear answer.

One pleasing incident occurred in 1917, when a Hull steam trawler which had been named after me, under the able handling of Skipper Addy and Lieutenant McCabe of the Naval Reserve, had an action with a heavily armed modern submarine, the fight lasting for some hours. The
Conan Doyle
was acting as flagship of a little group of trawlers, and though their guns were popguns compared with that of the German, they so peppered him that he was either sunk or took flight — anyhow, he vanished under the water. The little boat sent me its ship’s bell as a souvenir of the exploit, and I sent some small remembrances in exchange. It was a fine exploit, and I was proud to be connected with it, even in so remote a way.

I have in my war chapters expressed my admiration for General Haig. On one occasion I called upon Lady Haig, when she was administering some private hospital at Farnborough. It was, so far as I could understand, one wing of the Empress Eugenie’s house, and the Empress invited me to lunch. There were present also Prince Victor Napoleon and his wife, who was, I think, a daughter of my old aversion, Leopold, King of the Belgians and Overlord of the Congo. The Empress interested me deeply — a historical relic whom one would expect to study in old pictures and memoirs, yet there she was moving and talking before me. If Helen launched a thousand ships, Eugenie, by all accounts, did far more. Indeed, if the first German War was really from her inspiration, as Zola insists, she was at the root of all modern history. In spite of her great age, her face and figure preserved the lines of elegance and breed, the features clearly cut, the head set proudly upon the long neck. I glanced into her sitting-room as I passed the open door and noticed that she was engaged upon an enormous jig-saw puzzle, a thousand pieces if there were one. Children’s toys engaged the mind which once played with Empires. There is surely something fatal in that Spanish blood with its narrow fanatical religion and its masterful intolerance, magnificent but mediaeval like the Church which inspires it.

She talked very freely with me and in the most interesting manner. It was surprising to see how fresh her mind was, and what curious information she had at her command. She told me, for example, that tetanus in France depended very much upon what soil had got into the wound, while that in turn depended upon what manures had been used for the soil — thus the percentage of tetanus cases would be quite different in a vine-growing district and in one where ordinary crops were cultivated. She spoke seriously about the war, but was confident as to the ultimate result. This graceful, withered flower in its strange setting was one of the outstanding memories of those days.

All sorts of queer odd jobs came to me as to many others in the war. I was, of course, prepared always to do absolutely anything which was suggested, though the suggestions were sometimes not very reasonable. One must not argue, but simply put one’s whole weight, for what it is worth, into the scrum. Once I was directed to go up to Scotland and write up the great new munition works at Gretna, as the public needed reassurance upon the point. Pearson, the younger brother of Lord Cowdray, had built them, and they certainly deserved the name of “Miracle Town,” which I gave them in my article. The great difficulty always was to give our own people what they wanted and yet not to give the Germans that which they wanted also. Winston Churchill’s remarkable memoirs — the best, in my opinion, of all the war books — have shown how heavily this pressed in high quarters. His volume is certainly a wonderful vindication of his term of office, and it was a loss to the country when he left it.

Churchill was very open to ideas and sympathetic to those who were trying for some ideal. I had pondered much over armour for the troops, and he commented on it in an inspiring letter, in which he said that the bullet-proof man and the torpedo-proof ship were our two great objects. I worked a good deal upon the question of shields, and wrote several articles about it in “The Times “and other papers, but the forces against us were strong. When I saw Mr. Montague on the subject at the Ministry of Munitions, he said: “Sir Arthur, there is no use your arguing here, for there is no one in the building who does not know that you are right. The whole difficulty lies in making the soldiers accept your views.”

One has, of course, to be reasonable on the point, and to admit that there is a limit to what a man can carry, and that greater weight means slower movement, and therefore longer exposure. That is fully granted. But when the helmet in actual practice was found so useful, why should it not be supplemented by steel shoulder-guards, since the helmet might actually guide the bullets down on to the shoulders? And why not a plastron over the heart? The vital points in a man’s anatomy are not really so numerous. If many a life was saved by a buckle or a cigarette-case, why should such protection not be systematized? And why in trench warfare should not strong breastplates be kept for the temporary use of any troops in the front line? I experimented with my own service rifle upon steel plates, and I was surprised to find how easy it was at twenty paces to turn a bullet. I am convinced that very many lives would have been saved had my views been adopted, and that the men in the hour of danger would have been only too glad to carry that part of their equipment.

The Tank, however, was a device which carried the armour and the men also, so that it was an extension of these ideas. We can never be grateful enough to the men who thought out the Tank, for I have no doubt at all that this product of British brains and British labour won the war, which would otherwise have ended in a peace of mutual exhaustion. Churchill, D’Eyncourt, Tritton, Swinton and Bertie Stern, — these were in sober fact, divide the credit as you may, the men who played a very essential part in bringing down the giant.

Our household suffered terribly in the war. The first to fall was my wife’s brother Malcolm Leckie, of the Army Medical Service, whose gallantry was so conspicuous that he was awarded a posthumous D.S.O. While he was actually dying himself, with shrapnel in his chest, he had the wounded to his bedside and bandaged them. Then came the turn of Miss Loder Symonds, who lived with us and was a beloved member of the family. Three of her brothers were killed and the fourth wounded. Finally, on an evil day for us, she also passed on. Then two brave nephews, Alec Forbes and Oscar Hornung, went down with bullets through the brain. My gallant brother-in-law, Major Oldham, was killed by a sniper during his first days in the trenches. And then finally, just as all seemed over, I had a double blow. First it was my Kingsley, my only son by the first marriage, one of the grandest boys in body and soul that ever a father was blessed with. He had started the war as a private, worked up to an acting captaincy in the 1st Hampshires, and been very badly wounded on the Somme. It was pneumonia which slew him in London, and the same cursed plague carried off my soldier brother Innes, he who had shared my humble strivings at Southsea so many years ago. A career lay before him, for he was only forty and already Adjutant-General of a corps, with the Legion of Honour, and a great record of service. But he was called and he went like the hero he was. “You do not complain at all, sir,” said the orderly. “I am a soldier,” said the dying General. Thank God that I have since found that the gates are not shut, but only ajar, if one does show earnestness in the quest. Of all these that I have mentioned, there is but one from whom I have been unable to obtain clear proof of posthumous existence.

CHAPTER XXVIII. EXPERIENCES ON THE BRITISH FRON
T

Lord Newton — How I got out — Sir W. Robertson — The Destroyer — First Experience of Trenches — Ceremony at Bethune — Mother — The Ypres Salient — Ypres — The Hull Territorial — General Sir Douglas Haig — Artillery Duel — Kingsley — Major Wood — Paris.

I HAD naturally wished to get out to the British front and to see things for myself. And yet I had scruples also, for when soldiers are doing a difficult job mere spectators and joy-riders are out of place. I felt what a perfect nuisance they must be, and hesitated to join them. On the other hand, I had surely more claims than most, since I was not only compiling a history of the campaign, but was continually writing in the press upon military subjects. I made up my mind, therefore, that I was justified in going, but I had as yet no opportunity.

However, it came along in a very strange way. It was in the early summer of 1916 that I had a note from Lord Newton, saying that he wished to see me at the Foreign Office. I could not conceive what he wanted to see me about, but of course I went. Lord Newton seemed to be doing general utility work which involved the interests of our prisoners in Germany, as well as press arrangements, missions, etc. The former alone would be enough for anyone, and he was exposed to severe criticism for not being sufficiently zealous in the cause. “Newton, the Teuton,” sang the prisoners, a parody on “Gilbert, the Filbert,” one of the idiotic popular songs of pre-war days. However, I am convinced that he really did his very best, and that his policy was wise, for if it came to an interchange of revenge and barbarity between Germany and us, there was only one in it. There is no use starting a game in which you are bound to be beaten. Winston Churchill had tried it in the case of the submarine officers, with the result that thirty of our own picked officers had endured much in their prisons and the policy had to be reconsidered.

Lord Newton is a wit and has a humorous face which covers a good deal of solid capacity. He plunged instantly into the business on hand.

“It is the Italian army,” said he. “They want a bit of limelight. We propose to send several fellows on short missions to write them up. Your name has been mentioned and approved. Will you go?”

I never thought more quickly in my life than on that occasion. I had no plan when I entered the room, since I was ignorant of the proposition, but I saw my opening in a flash.

“No,” said I.

Lord Newton looked surprised.

“Why not? “he asked.

“Because I should be in a false position,” I answered. “I have nothing to compare them with. I have not even seen the British front yet. How absurd it would be for me to approve or to condemn when they could reasonably ask me what I knew about the matter!”

“Would you go if that were set right?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Then I don’t think there will be an insuperable difficulty.”

“Well, if you can arrange that, I am entirely at your disposal.”

“By the way,” said he, “if you go to the front, and especially to the Italian front, a uniform will be essential. What have you a right to wear?”

“I am a private in the Volunteers.”

He laughed.

“I think you would be shot at sight by both armies,” said he. “You would be looked upon as a rare specimen. I don’t think that would do.”

I had a happy thought.

“I am a deputy-lieutenant of Surrey,” said I. “I have the right to wear a uniform when with troops.”

“Excellent! “he cried. “Nothing could be better. Well, you will hear from me presently.”

I went straight off to my tailor, who rigged me up in a wondrous khaki garb which was something between that of a Colonel’ and a Brigadier, with silver roses instead of stars or crowns upon the shoulder-straps. As I had the right to wear several medals, including the South African, the general effect was all right, but I always felt a mighty impostor, though it was certainly very comfortable and convenient. I was still a rare specimen, and quite a number of officers of three nations made inquiry about my silver roses. A deputy-lieutenant may not be much in England, but when translated into French — my French anyhow — it has an awe-inspiring effect, and I was looked upon by them as an inscrutable but very big person with a uniform all of his own.

It was in May when I had my meeting with Lord Newton, and towards the end of the month I received a pass which would take me to the British lines. I remember the solicitude of my family, who seemed to think that I was going on active service. To quiet their kindly anxieties I said: “My dears, I shall be held in the extreme rear, and I shall be lucky if ever I see a shell burst on the far horizon.” The sequel showed that my estimate was nearly as mistaken as theirs.

I had had some correspondence with General Robertson, and had dedicated my History of the war to him, so much was I impressed with the splendid work he had done behind the line in the early days, when Cowans and he had as much strain and anxiety from their position in the wings as any of those who were in the limelight of the stage. He was, as it happened, going over to France, and he sent me a note to ask whether I would like to share his private compartment on the train and then use his destroyer instead of the ordinary steamer. Of course I was delighted. General Robertson is a sturdy, soldierly, compact man, with a bull-dog face, and looks as if he might be obstinate and even sullen if crossed. Such men are splendid if they keep their qualities for the enemy, but possibly dangerous if they use them on their associates. Certainly Robertson had a great deal of fighting to do at home as well as abroad, and was in the latter days of the war in constant conflict with the authorities, and with an open feud against the Prime Minister, but it is hard to say who was right. Perhaps, if it were not for the pressure which Robertson, Repington and others exercised, it would have been more difficult to raise those last few hundred thousand men who saved us in 1918. Like so many big men, his appearance was most deceptive, and though he looked every inch the soldier, there was nothing to show that great capacity for handling a large business, which would surely have put him at the head of any commercial concern in the country. There was a Cromwellian touch in him which peeped out in occasional religious allusions. He was very engrossed in papers and figures, and I hardly had a word with him between London and Newhaven.

We went straight on to the destroyer and she cast off her moorings within a few minutes. The Channel crossing was a great experience for me, and I stood on the bridge all the time looking about for traces of war — which were not numerous. Just under the bridge stood a sturdy seaman in pea jacket and flapped cap, an intent, crouching, formidable figure, with his hand on the crank of a quick-firing gun. He never relaxed, and for the whole hour, as we tore across, his head, and occasionally his gun, was slowly traversing from right to left. The captain, a young lieutenant whose name I have forgotten, told me what hellish work it was in the winter, though perhaps “hellish “is not the
mot juste
for that bitterly cold vigil. His ship was called the
Zulu.
Shortly afterwards it was blown up, as was its consort the
Nubian,
but as two of the halves were still serviceable, they stuck them together and made one very good ship, the
Zubian.
You can’t beat the British dockyard any more than you can the British Navy which it mothers. That evening we ran through some twenty miles of Northern France, and wound up at the usual guest-house, where I met several travelling Russians. Colonel Wilson, a dark, quiet, affable man, who had the thorny job of looking after the press, and Brig.-General Charteris, a pleasant, breezy, fresh-complexioned soldier, head of the British Intelligence Department, joined us at dinner. Everything was quite comfortable, but at the same time properly plain and simple. There is nothing more hateful than luxury behind a battle-line. Next day I had a wonderful twelve hours in contact with the soldiers all the time, and I will take some account of it from the notes I made at the time, but now I can expand them and give names more freely.

The crowning impression which I carried away from that wonderful day was the enormous imperturbable confidence of the Army and its extraordinary efficiency in organization, administration, material, and personnel. I met in one day a sample of many types, an army commander, a corps commander, two divisional commanders, staff officers of many grades, and, above all, I met repeatedly the two very great men whom Britain has produced, the private soldier and the regimental officer. Everywhere and on every face one read the same spirit of cheerful bravery. Even the half-mad cranks whose absurd consciences prevented them from barring the way to the devil seemed to me to be turning into men under the prevailing influence. I saw a batch of them, neurotic and largely bespectacled, but working with a will by the roadside. There was no foolish bravado, no underrating of a dour opponent, but a quick, alert, confident attention to the job in hand which was an inspiration to the observer.

“Get out of the car. Don’t let it stay here. It may be hit.” These words from a staff officer gave you the first idea that things were going to happen. Up to then you might have been driving through the black country in the Walsall district with the population of Aldershot let loose upon its dingy roads. “Put on this shrapnel helmet. That hat of yours would infuriate the Boche” — this was an unkind allusion to my uniform. “Take this gas mask. You won’t need it, but it is a standing order. Now come on!”

We crossed a meadow and entered a trench. Here and there it came to the surface again where there was dead ground. At one such point an old church stood, with an unexploded shell sticking out of the wall. A century hence folk may journey to see that shell. Then on again through an endless cutting. It was slippery clay below. I had no nails in my boots, an iron pot on my head, and the sun above me. I remember that walk. The telephone wires ran down the side. Here and there large thistles and other plants grew from the clay walls, so immobile had been our lines. Occasionally there were patches of untidiness. “Shells,” said the officer laconically. There was a racket of guns before us and behind, especially behind, but danger seemed remote with all these Bairnsfather groups of cheerful Tommies at work around us. I passed one group of grimy, tattered boys. A glance at their shoulders showed me that they were of a public-school battalion, the 20th Royal Fusiliers. “I thought you fellows were all officers now,” I remarked. “No, sir, we like it better so.”

“Well, it will be a great memory for you. We are all in your debt.”

They saluted, and we squeezed past them. They had the fresh brown faces of boy cricketers. But their comrades were men of a different type, with hard, strong, rugged features, and the eyes of men who have seen strange sights. These were veterans, men of Moris, and their young pals of the public schools had something to live up to.

Up to this we only had two clay walls to look at. But now our interminable and tropical walk was lightened by the sight of a British aeroplane sailing overhead. Numerous shrapnel bursts were all around it, but she floated on serenely, a thing of delicate beauty against the blue background. Now another passed — and yet another. All the morning we/Saw them circling and swooping, and never a sign of a Boche. They told me it was nearly always so — that we held the air, and that the Boche intruder, save at early morning, was a rare bird. “We have never met a British aeroplane which was not ready to fight,” said a captured German aviator. There was a fine, stern courtesy between the airmen on either side, each dropping notes into the other’s aerodromes to tell the fate of missing officers. Had the whole war been fought by the Germans as their airmen conducted it (I do not speak, of course, of the Zeppelin murderers), a peace would eventually have been more easily arranged.

And now we were there — in what was surely the most wonderful spot in the world — the front firing trench, the outer breakwater which held back the German tide. How strange that this monstrous oscillation of giant forces, setting in from east to west, should find their equilibrium across this particular meadow of Flanders. “How far?” I asked. “One hundred and eighty yards,” said my guide. “Pop! “remarked a third person just in front. “A sniper,” said my guide; “take a look through the periscope.” I did so. There was some rusty wire before me, then a field sloping slightly upwards with knee-deep grass, and ragged dock and fennel and nettles, then rusty wire again, and a red line of broken earth. There was not a sign of movement, but sharp eyes were always watching us, even as these crouching soldiers around me were watching them. There were dead Germans in the grass before us. You need not see them to know that they were there. A wounded soldier sat in a corner nursing his leg. Here and there men popped out like rabbits from dug-outs and mine-shafts. Others sat on the fire-step or leaned smoking against the clay wall. Who would dream, who looked at their bold, careless faces, that this was a front line, and that at any moment it was possible that a grey wave might submerge them? With all their careless bearing, I noticed that every man had his gas mask and his rifle within easy reach.

A mile of front trenches and then we were on our way back down that weary walk. Then I was whisked off upon a ten-mile drive. There was a pause for lunch at Corps Head-quarters, and after it we were taken to a medal presentation in the market square of Bethune. Generals Munro, Haking, and Landon, famous fighting soldiers all three, were the British representatives. Munro, with a ruddy face, all brain above, all bulldog below; Haking, pale, distinguished, intellectual; Landon, a pleasant genial country squire. An elderly French General stood beside them. British infantry kept the ground. In front were about fifty Frenchmen in civil dress of every grade of life, workmen and gentlemen, in a double rank. They were all so wounded that they were back in civil life, but today they were to have some solace for their wounds. They leaned heavily on sticks, their bodies twisted and maimed, but their faces were shining with pride and joy. The French General drew his sword and addressed them. One caught words like “honneur” and “patrie.” They leaned forward on their crutches, hanging on every syllable which came hissing and rasping from under that heavy white moustache. Then the medals were pinned on. One poor lad was terribly wounded and needed two sticks. A little girl ran out with some flowers. He leaned forward and tried to kiss her, but the crutches slipped and he nearly fell upon her. It was a pitiful but beautiful little scene.