and War

Three days later I got my orders to report at Paris for special
service. They came none too soon, for I chafed at each hour's delay.
Every thought in my head was directed to the game which we were playing
against Ivery. He was the big enemy, compared to whom the ordinary
Boche in the trenches was innocent and friendly. I had almost lost
interest in my division, for I knew that for me the real battle-front
was not in Picardy, and that my job was not so easy as holding a length
of line. Also I longed to be at the same work as Mary.

I remember waking up in billets the morning after the night at the
Chateau with the feeling that I had become extraordinarily rich. I felt
very humble, too, and very kindly towards all the world--even to the
Boche, though I can't say I had ever hated him very wildly. You find
hate more among journalists and politicians at home than among fighting
men. I wanted to be quiet and alone to think, and since that was
impossible I went about my work in a happy abstraction. I tried not to
look ahead, but only to live in the present, remembering that a war was
on, and that there was desperate and dangerous business before me, and
that my hopes hung on a slender thread. Yet for all that I had
sometimes to let my fancies go free, and revel in delicious dreams.

But there was one thought that always brought me back to hard ground,
and that was Ivery. I do not think I hated anybody in the world but
him. It was his relation to Mary that stung me. He had the insolence
with all his toad-like past to make love to that clean and radiant
girl. I felt that he and I stood as mortal antagonists, and the thought
pleased me, for it helped me to put some honest detestation into my
job. Also I was going to win. Twice I had failed, but the third time I
should succeed. It had been like ranging shots for a gun--first short,
second over, and I vowed that the third should be dead on the mark.

I was summoned to G.H.Q., where I had half an hour's talk with the
greatest British commander. I can see yet his patient, kindly face and
that steady eye which no vicissitude of fortune could perturb. He took
the biggest view, for he was statesman as well as soldier, and knew
that the whole world was one battle-field and every man and woman among
the combatant nations was in the battle-line. So contradictory is human
nature, that talk made me wish for a moment to stay where I was. I
wanted to go on serving under that man. I