One Young Man | Page 2

is not his real name, but this I can vouch is his true story.
For the most part it is told exactly in his own words. You'll admit its
truth when you have read it, for there isn't a line in it which will stretch
your imagination a hair's breadth. It's the plain unvarnished tale of an
average young man who joined the army because he considered it his
duty--who fought for many months. That's why I am trying to record it;
for if I tell it truly I shall have written the story of many thousands--I
shall have written a page of the nation's history.
And so I need not warn you at the beginning that this book does not

end with a V.C. and cheering throngs. It may possibly end with
wedding bells, but you will agree there's nothing out of the common
about that--and a good job too.
I think on the whole I will keep Sydney Baxter's real name to myself.
For one thing he is still in the army; for another he is expected back at
the same office when he is discharged from hospital. It's rather
beginning at the wrong end to mention the hospital at this stage, but, as
I've done so, I'd better explain that after going unscathed through Ypres
and Hill 60, and all the trench warfare that followed, Sydney Baxter
was wounded in nine places at the first battle of the Somme on that
ever-glorious and terrible first of July. He is, as I write, waiting for a
glass eye; he has a silver plate where part of his frontal bone used to be;
is minus one whole finger, and the best part of a second. He is deep
scarred from his eyelid to his hair. I can tell you he looks as if he had
been through it. Well, he has.
He was nicknamed "Gig-lamps" in the office. He wore large spectacles
and his face was unhealthily lacking in traces of the open air. He was in
demeanour a very typical son of religious parents--well brought up,
shielded, shepherded, a little spoiled, a little soft perhaps, and maybe a
trifle self-consciously righteous. A good boy, a home boy. No need for
me to pile on the adjectives--you know exactly the kind of chap he was.
One more thing, however, and very important--he had a sense of
humour and he was uniformly good tempered and willing. That is why,
in a short time, the prejudice of the office gave way to open approval.
"Young Baxter may be a 'pi' youth, but he's quick at his job, and
nothing's too much trouble for him," said his boss. And against their
previous judgment the boys liked him. He could see a joke. He was a
good sort.
Curiously enough it was the Y.M.C.A. that first introduced Sydney
Baxter to what, for want of a better term, we will call the sporting side
of life. There's a fine sporting side to every real Englishman's life--don't
let there be any mistake about that. "He is a sportsman" is not, as a few
excellent people seem to believe, a term of reproach. It is one of the
highest honours conferred on an officer by the men he commands. And

in the ranks "a good sport" is often another way of spelling "a hero."
It was, as I say, at the Y.M.C.A. that this one young man was first
taken out of himself and his quiet home surroundings, first became
interested in the convivialities of life. In those days, to be quite frank
about it, a certain settled staidness of demeanour, a decided aloofness
from the outside world, marked many religious households. A book of
unexceptional moral tone, and probably containing what was known as
"definite teaching," was the main relaxation after working hours--that,
and an occasional meeting and some secretarial work for a religious or
charitable society. Companions, if any, were very carefully chosen by
the parents. Well, war has changed all that--it has even chosen our very
bed-fellows for us. And no questions to be asked, either.
It is often assumed by those who know no better that such a home as
Sydney Baxter's produces either prigs or profligates. As a matter of fact,
one of the reasons of this book is to prove that out of such a home may
come, I believe often does come, the best type of Englishman--a
Christian sportsman, a man who fights all the better for his country
because he has been taught from childhood to fear God and hate
iniquity.
But it was well for Sydney Baxter that he prepared for the chances and
quick changes of his military life by learning how to make the best of
his hitherto hidden gift of companionship.
This is how it came