William—An Englishman

thinking but a shade less narrow than the office; to be left for the rolling, the shifting life, the only life worth living. He had had his ups, he had had his downs⁠—but always with his eyes on the distance. Ten fine years of it, American, African, Australian; the life independent where you shouldered your pack and gave men the go-by when you were sick of them. And then, in the summer of 1914, a fancy to see the Old Country. He had worked his passage homeward in a short-handed tramp and arrived at Tilbury on the day the Kaiser’s government sent its ultimatum to Russia. Four days later he was a soldier in the British Army, and a year or so later had a kneecap damaged and a shoulder put out of action. They had patched him up carefully, made quite a decent job of him, and he walked and moved his left arm with comfort; but, adjudged unfit for the fighting line, he had done with the trenches for good. Permanent base now, with a cushy job at the office of the D.D. of Works. Filing and copying documents relating to hut construction; he had been fool enough to let out that he had had some small training as a clerk.

“In a way,” he said, chewing at a long blade of grass, “it’s a good thing I’ve got my stiff knee. If I could put the miles under me as I used to, I believe⁠—I believe I’d go. It would come over me and I’d go. Not that I want to desert, but it might be too strong for me; I’ve always been my own master and I’ve always wanted to know what was on the other side of the hill. Straight on”⁠—he pointed southward⁠—“straight on, anywhere. The road⁠—if you’ve once tramped it⁠ ⁠…” He broke off and stared with his eyes on the distance and beyond it.

After a minute or two of silence he asked William suddenly what had made him join the Army; and William gave him confidence for confidence, attracted he knew not why. The man’s craving for loneliness and bodily exertion was something he could not understand; but they were on common ground in their mutual rebellion against the weariness of daily life. They talked with long silences in between their speech, telling out their hearts to each other; or rather finding in each other’s presence an excuse for speaking their hearts. Later it seemed odd to William that though they spoke freely of their lives and their griefs it had never struck either of them to ask of the other his name.

“So you joined up because of your wife,” said the man who lay on his elbow.

“Yes,” William answered him, “I thought⁠—” He did not finish the sentence; it wearied him now to remember what he had thought.

“Sometimes,” the other broke the silence, “I ask myself why I joined up. Don’t see how it could have been patriotism; England hadn’t been anything to me for years. My sister died soon after I left it and I hadn’t anyone else. So far as I can make out it never was much to me; I was always unhappy in England, hated school and office and towns⁠—I lived in a town. Never knew what life could be till I got away from it. Say the Germans had won and dominated the earth! They wouldn’t have dominated my earth. I could always have made myself a campfire where they wouldn’t have wanted to follow me. If they’d sacked London and swallowed up New York I could have lain out under the stars at night and laughed at ’em. So what made me?⁠ ⁠… Some say man’s a fighting animal.”

He pulled a fresh grass-blade to chew and rolled over on his chest till his chin rested on his hands.

“I knew I should hate soldiering⁠—I made no mistake about that. The regularity⁠—shipboard’s too regular for me. I’ve tried it more than once for the sake of getting somewhere, and before the voyage was half over I’d always had more than enough. I knew I should hate it, but I joined up straight and away.⁠ ⁠… I’ve lost everything that made life good to me. Other chaps⁠—blind chaps and crippled⁠—might think I’d got off easily. So I have, I daresay; but then it isn’t everyone whose life was in moving on. Often when I was alone I’ve shouted and laughed just to feel how my legs moved under me.⁠ ⁠… It’s the devil⁠—this compound⁠—but even if I were out of it, I’m a lame thing. When the war ends I’m a lame thing. Not what most people would call crippled, of course; I can walk a few miles and feed myself, and to look at me you wouldn’t know there was anything at all the matter. If I were a townsman it wouldn’t make very much difference; if I’d stayed a clerk I could go on being a clerk. But I can’t be⁠ ⁠… what I was. I’ve lost everything that made life good to me. What for?

“I can’t remember exactly the feeling I had about it when I enlisted⁠—what made me do it. So many things have happened since then. But I know I didn’t think about it long; so far as I remember I didn’t hesitate, not for a minute. I went straight off the morning after war was declared. Midnight, fourth, we were at war, and midday, fifth, I was a soldier. Must have been some sort of instinct.⁠ ⁠… Sometimes I tell myself what a blazing fool I am.

“That’s sometimes. Other times⁠—”

He was silent for so long that William concluded the flow of his confidence had ceased.

“When you live in a crowd,” he said at last, “you can always make excuses for yourself. Most likely you don’t need to. If you’re a fool or a coward you herd with a lot of other fools and cowards, and you all back each other up. So you never come face to face with