In the meantime David sat moody and silent, his face twitching nervously and his fingers twiddling one of his tunic buttons. “Look here, George,” he said, abruptly, scrutinizing the button as though he’d never seen such a thing before, “I’ve come to tell you that you’ve got to drop this anti-war business.” This was a new idea, for I wasn’t yet beyond my sense of relief at seeing him. “But I can’t drop it,” I exclaimed. “Don’t you realize that I’m a man with a message? I thought you’d come to see me through the court martial as ‘prisoner’s friend.’ ” We then settled down to an earnest discussion about the “political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men were being sacrificed.” He did most of the talking, while I disagreed defensively. But even if our conversation could be reported in full, I am afraid that the verdict of posterity would be against us. We agreed that the world had gone mad; but neither of us could see beyond his own experience, and we weren’t life-learned enough to share the patient selfless stoicism through which men of maturer age were acquiring anonymous glory. Neither of us had the haziest idea of what the politicians were really up to (though it is possible that the politicians were only feeling their way and trusting in providence and the output of munitions to solve their problems). Nevertheless we argued as though the secret confabulations of Cabinet Ministers in various countries were as clear as daylight to us, and our assumption was that they were all wrong, while we, who had been in the trenches, were farseeing and infallible. But when I said that the War ought to be stopped and it was my duty to do my little bit to stop it, David replied that the War was bound to go on till one side or the other collapsed, and the Pacifists were only meddling with what they didn’t understand. “At any rate Thornton Tyrrell’s a jolly fine man and knows a bloody sight more about everything than you do,” I exclaimed. “Tyrrell’s only a doctrinaire,” replied David, “though I grant you he’s a courageous one.” Before I had time to ask what the hell he knew about doctrinaires, he continued, “No one except people who’ve been in the real fighting have any right to interfere about the War; and even they can’t get anything done about it. All they can do is to remain loyal to one another. And you know perfectly well that most of the conscientious objectors are nothing but skrimshankers.” I retorted that I knew nothing of the sort, and mentioned a young doctor who’d played Rugby Football for Scotland and was now in prison although he could have been doing hospital work if he’d wanted to. David then announced that he’d been doing a bit of wire-pulling on my behalf and that I should soon find that my Pacifist M.P. wouldn’t do me as much good as I expected. This put my back up. David had no right to come butting in about my private affairs. “If you’ve really been trying to persuade the authorities not to do anything nasty to me,” I remarked, “that’s about the hopefullest thing I’ve heard. Go on doing it and exercise your usual tact, and you’ll get me two years’ hard labour for certain, and with any luck they’ll decide to shoot me as a sort of deserter.” He looked so aggrieved at this that I relented and suggested that we’d better have some lunch. But David was always an absentminded eater, and on this occasion he prodded disapprovingly at his food and then bolted it down as if it were medicine.
A couple of hours later we were wandering aimlessly along the shore at Formby, and still jabbering for all we were worth. I refused to accept his well-meaning assertion that no one at the Front would understand my point of view and that they would only say that I’d got cold feet. “And even if they do say that,” I argued, “the main point is that by backing out of my statement I shall be betraying my real convictions and the people who are supporting me. Isn’t that worse cowardice than being thought cold-footed by officers who refuse to think about anything except the gentlemanly traditions of the Regiment? I’m not doing it for fun, am I? Can’t you understand that this is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life? I’m not going to be talked out of it just when I’m forcing them to make a martyr of me.” “They won’t make a martyr of you,” he replied. “How do you know that?” I asked. He said that the Colonel at Clitherland had told him to tell me that if I continued to refuse to be “medically-boarded” they would shut me up in a lunatic asylum for the rest of the War. Nothing would induce them to court martial me. It had all been arranged with some big bug at the War Office in the last day or two. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked. “I kept it as a last resort because I was afraid it might upset you,” he replied, tracing a pattern on the sand with his stick. “I wouldn’t believe this from anyone but you. Will you swear on the Bible that you’re telling the truth?” He swore on an imaginary Bible that nothing would induce them to court martial me and that I should be treated as insane. “All right then, I’ll give way.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I sat down on an old wooden breakwater.
So that was the end of my grand gesture. I ought to have known that the blighters would do me down somehow, I thought, scowling heavily
