Tales of War by Lord Dunsany (classic fiction txt) 📕

“A fine day,” said Sir Munion. And from that he went on to the war. “If you enlist,” he said, “they will make you a sergeant again at once. You will get a sergeant’s pay, and your wife will get the new separation allowance.”

“Sooner have Cane,” said Mrs Cane.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Sir Munion. “But then there is the medal, probably two or three medals, and the glory of it, and it is such a splendid life.”

Sir Munion did warm to a thing whenever he began to hear his own words. He painted war as it has always been painted, one of the most beautiful things you could imagine. And then it mustn’t be supposed that it was like those wars that there used to be, a long way off. There would be houses where you would be billeted, and good food, and shady trees and villages wherever you went. And it was such an opportunity of seeing the Continent (“the Continent as it really is,” Sir Munion called it) as would never come again, and he only wished he were younger. Sir Munion really did wish it, as he spoke, for his own words stirred him profoundly; but somehow or other they did not stir Sergeant Cane. No, he had done his share, and he had a family to look after.

Sir Munion could not understand him: he went back to the Big House and said so. He had told him all the advantages he could think of that were there to be had for the asking, and Sergeant Cane merely neglected them.

“Let me have a try,” said Arthur Smith. “He soldiered with me before.”

Sir Munion shrugged his shoulders. He had all the advantages at his fingers’ ends, from pay to billeting: there was nothing more to be said. Nevertheless young Smith went.

“Hullo, Sergeant Cane,” said Smith.

“Hello, sir,” said the sergeant.

“Do you remember that night at Reit River?”

“Don’t I, sir,” said Cane.

“One blanket each and no ground sheet?”

“I remember, sir,” said Cane.

“Didn’t it rain,” said Smith.

“It rained that night, proper.”

“Drowned a few of the lice, I suppose.”

“Not many,” said Cane.

“No, not many,” Smith reflected. “The Boers had the range all right that time.”

“Gave it us proper,” said Cane.

“We were hungry that night,” said Smith. “I could have eaten biltong.”

“I did eat some of it,” said Cane. “Not bad stuff, what there was of it, only not enough.”

“I don’t think,” said Smith, “that I’ve ever slept on the bare earth since.”

“No, sir?” said Cane. “It’s hard. You get used to it. But it will always be hard.”

“Yes, it will always be hard,” said Smith. “Do you remember the time we were thirsty?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” said Cane, “I remember that. One doesn’t forget that.”

“No. I still dream of it sometimes,” said Smith. “It makes a nasty dream. I wake with my mouth all dry too, when I dream that.”

“Yes,” said Cane, “one doesn’t forget being thirsty.”

“Well,” said Smith, “I suppose we’re for it all over again?”

“I suppose so, sir,” said Cane.

An Investigation Into the Causes and Origin of the War

The German imperial barber has been called up. He must have been called up quite early in the war. I have seen photographs in papers that leave no doubt of that. Who he is I do not know: I once read his name in an article but have forgotten it; few even know if he still lives. And yet what harm he has done! What vast evils he has unwittingly originated! Many years ago he invented a frivolity, a jeu d’esprit easily forgivable to an artist in the heyday of his youth, to whom his art was new and even perhaps wonderful. A craft, of course, rather than an art, and a humble craft at that; but then, the man was young, and what will not seem wonderful to youth?

He must have taken the craft very seriously, but as youth takes things seriously, fantastically and with laughter. He must have determined to outshine rivals: he must have gone away and thought, burning candles late perhaps, when all the palace was still. But how can youth think seriously? And there had come to him this absurd, this fantastical conceit. What else would have come? The more seriously he took the tonsorial art, the more he studied its tricks and phrases and heard old barbers lecture, the more sure were the imps of youth to prompt him to laughter and urge him to something outrageous and ridiculous. The background of the dull pomp of Potsdam must have made all this more certain. It was bound to come.

And so one day, or, as I have suggested, suddenly late one night, there came to the young artist bending over tonsorial books that quaint, mad, odd, preposterous inspiration. Ah, what pleasure there is in the madness of youth; it is not like the madness of age, clinging to outworn formulæ; it is the madness of breaking away, of galloping among precipices, of dallying with the impossible, of courting the absurd. And this inspiration, it was in none of the books; the lecturer barbers had not lectured on it, could not dream of it and did not dare to; there was no tradition for it, no precedent; it was mad; and to introduce it into the pomp of Potsdam, that was the daring of madness. And this preposterous inspiration of the absurd young barber-madman was nothing less than a moustache that without any curve at all, or any suggestion of sanity, should go suddenly up at the ends very nearly as high as the eyes!

He must have told his young fellow craftsmen first, for youth goes first to youth with its hallucinations. And they, what could they have said? You cannot say of madness that it is mad, you cannot call absurdity absurd. To have criticized would have revealed jealousy; and as for praise you could not praise a thing like that. They probably shrugged, made gestures; and perhaps one friend warned him. But you cannot warn a man against a madness; if the madness is in possession it will not be warned away: why should it? And then perhaps he went to the old barbers of the Court. You can picture their anger. Age does not learn from youth in any case. But there was the insult to their ancient craft, bad enough if only imagined, but here openly spoken of. And what would come of it? They must have feared, on the one hand, dishonour to their craft if this young barber were treated as his levity deserved; and, on the other hand, could they have feared his success? I think they could not have guessed it.

And then the young idiot with his preposterous inspiration must have looked about to see where he could practise his new absurdity. It should have been enough to have talked about it among his fellow barbers; they would have gone with new