Lansdowne Crescent: Chapter 31
‘Who is the man with the beautiful face? But how sad it is for such a young man.’
Friends and relatives bear a burden of grief and enduring sadness as young men die in battle.
Jean Day continues her account of the lives of neighbours in the town of Worcester during the early decades of the Twentieth Century.
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It was a great comfort to us that Pete's term at Cambridge ended on almost the very day we heard of Frank's death, and he was able to be with us during the time immediately following. In fact, the War Office were for once generous, and he was able to spend the whole of the month of August with us. He proved a tower of strength; he seemed to have turned all at once from a boy into a man, and he assumed in a wonderful way the responsibility of the only son of the family. He felt Frank's death acutely, they had been exceptionally good friends, and Peter always counted upon Frank's opinion on every important point. He said little, but whether it was the war or whether it was his brothers' deaths - probably it was a compound of the two his character changed; he became very silent, and his face in repose was extraordinarily sad. Of course he was not always like that, often he would waken up and be the cause of great noise and laughter, and his sense of humour never left him. But to us who watched him there was behind it all a sense that the burden of something was lying heavy upon him. This sadness of countenance was noticed by others outside the family too. One day at Hampstead a visitor who was introduced to him said afterwards to Aunt Jo. ‘Who is the man with the beautiful face? But how sad it is for such a young man.’
At the beginning of September Pete was given a commission in the Machine Gun Corps, and was stationed at Grantham at the Machine Gun Headquarters. Owing to the circumstances of his case, after undergoing the usual six weeks' training he was not drafted into a company, but was given work at the Headquarters Office, and though much of the work was very boring, he knew that he was safe for Home Service so long as he stayed there.
Grantham is not an ideal spot for a young man to spend time in. As Peter so described it, ‘Grantham is an awful hole. Its redeeming features are a theatre, which runs the usual type of variety show, and a rather superior tea-shop with a cinema attached, or rather the other way about.’
The actual work connected with the guns he found quite interesting. He described it as ‘a sort of cross between Algebra at its worst and Geometry particularly involved, quite interesting, and a vast improvement on anything I have done in the army before.’
Peter has, perhaps, given us a deeper insight into his mind than the other two. For so young a man he has, it seems to me, unusual sympathy with the sufferings of others. He realises with extraordinary insight the anguish which the mothers have had to endure in this war. I have by me a letter which he wrote to me soon after Frank's death, which shows how deeply he had thought things out. Let me quote it here:
‘Thank you very much for your letter. It's nice to know something, however little, about Frank. I'm afraid he had a very rough time of it those last weeks, and we can't help feeling that it was better for him to die like that than to go on suffering hell indefinitely. It's not very easy for us to take that view of it anyway. In the first place, no one in England realises at all what men can suffer mentally abroad, and in the second, it's very hard to be philosophical and to take the purely unselfish view, however hard we try. And really the only thing to do is to carry on in the same old way as before, only knowing that when things seem particularly hard and not worthwhile, then if we stick to it and don't give way we are nearer to them. That's why this war is so much harder on women than men. When men are doing something definite in the war it helps a lot. But the bravest of all are the women, and not the women doing war work necessarily, but the women who have to stay at home and keep things together and see their loved ones suffer and die, and can do nothing to help them save hope and pray.
They are the real heroes of the war. You are the people whom my heart goes out to, and I wish I could do something to help and comfort all of you at home. But that I'm afraid is beyond my power. I think the two people I have admired most of late are mother and Lucy. You say that mother drew a simile between Christ and those who suffer, but still stick to their duty. I wonder if she has ever considered how God-like the parents are who gladly give their sons to save the world if it can be saved. Surely behaviour like that is better than all these National Missions and special service and so on.
The real religion of the world is not to be found in churches but in homes. I think that if these bishops and people spent their time in going round the homes of fallen soldiers and did something for the parents and sisters and wives, they would be doing a far finer thing than in getting people into a state of mental depression in the churches. People have got quite enough to be miserable about without thinking of their sins. Or do these parsons really think that God is so narrow minded as to be angry with people for comparatively trifling sins when they have given their utmost all for the sake of honour? If they do, then either they are wrong or there's something radically wrong with their religion somewhere. It's very easy for a man with a. good social position to get up and tell people that their attitude towards life is all wrong and damn the soldiers for a set of drunken hooligans, but it is really surprising how pained they feel if they are called upon to show a little practical religion and give up their chauffeurs.
Well, I didn't intend this letter to be a sermon, but I did want to show and tell you, and it's not very easy to express one's feelings, how much I do feel and think about and admire you at home.’
