One Young Man | Page 2

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 about. He writes:
"One afternoon in early autumn a card was put into the hands of every young man in our office, inviting us to a tea and social evening at the Y.M.C.A. Headquarters. The chaps said to me, 'Of course you are going, Baxter?' and I answered, 'Why not?' They, however, seemed to be of the opinion that the tea was, more or less, a bait to a prayer-meeting or something of that kind. However, several went, expecting, and preparing themselves for, the worst. We were welcomed by a group