Now It Can Be Told | Page 8

armlet. But that cheeriness covered secret worries. Night after
night, in those early weeks of our service, he sat in his little office,
talking earnestly with the press officers-- our censors. They seemed to
be arguing, debating, protesting, about secret influences and hostilities
surrounding us and them. I could only guess what it was all about. It all
seemed to make no difference to me when I sat down before pieces of
blank paper to get down some kind of picture, some kind of impression,
of a long day in place where I had been scared awhile because death
was on the prowl in a noisy way and I had seen it pounce on human
bodies. I knew that tomorrow I was going to another little peep-show of
war, where I should hear the same noises. That talk downstairs, that
worry about some mystery at G. H. Q. would make no difference to the
life or death of men, nor get rid of that coldness which came to me
when men were being killed nearby. Why all that argument?
It seemed that G. H. Q.--mysterious people in a mysterious place--were
drawing up rules for war correspondence and censorship; altering rules
made the day before, formulating new rules for to-morrow, establishing
precedents, writing minutes, initialing reports with, "Passed to you," or,
"I agree," written on the margin. The censors who lived with us and
traveled with us and were our friends, and read what we wrote before
the ink was dry, had to examine our screeds with microscopic eyes and
with infinite remembrance of the thousand and one rules. Was it safe to
mention the weather? Would that give any information to the enemy?
Was it permissible to describe the smell of chloride-of-lime in the
trenches, or would that discourage recruiting? That description of the
traffic on the roads of war, with transport wagons, gun-limbers, lorries,

mules--how did that conflict with Rule No. 17a (or whatever it was)
prohibiting all mention of movements of troops?
One of the censors working late at night, with lines of worry on his
forehead and little puckers about his eyes, turned to me with a queer
laugh, one night in the early days. He was an Indian Civil Servant, and
therefore, by every rule, a gentleman and a charming fellow.
"You don't know what I am risking in passing your despatch! It's too
good to spoil, but G. H. Q. will probably find that it conveys accurate
information to the enemy about the offensive in 1925. I shall get the
sack--and oh, the difference to me!"
It appeared that G. H. Q. was nervous of us. They suggested that our
private letters should be tested for writing in invisible ink between the
lines. They were afraid that, either deliberately for some journalistic
advantage, or in sheer ignorance as "outsiders," we might hand
information to the enemy about important secrets. Belonging to the old
caste of army mind, they believed that war was the special prerogative
of professional soldiers, of which politicians and people should have no
knowledge. Therefore as civilians in khaki we were hardly better than
spies.
The Indian Civil Servant went for a stroll with me in the moonlight,
after a day up the line, where young men were living and dying in dirty
ditches. I could see that he was worried, even angry.
"Those people!" he said.
"What people?"
"G. H. Q."
"Oh, Lord!" I groaned. "Again?" and looked across the fields of corn to
the dark outline of a convent on the hill where young officers were
learning the gentle art of killing by machine-guns before their turn
came to be killed or crippled. I thought of a dead boy I had seen that
day--or yesterday was it?--kneeling on the fire-step of a trench, with his

forehead against the parapet as though in prayer. . . How sweet was the
scent of the clover to-night! And how that star twinkled above the low
flashes of gun-fire away there in the salient.
"They want us to waste your time," said the officer. "Those were the
very words used by the Chief of Intelligence--in writing which I have
kept. 'Waste their time!' . . . I'll be damned if I consider my work is to
waste the time of war correspondents. Don't those good fools see that
this is not a professional adventure, like their other little wars; that the
whole nation is in it, and that the nation demands to know what its men
are doing? They have a right to know."

IV
Just at first--though not for long--there was a touch of hostility against
us among divisional and brigade staffs, of the Regulars, but not of the
New Army. They, too, suspected our motive in going to their quarters,
wondered why we