PEOPLE AND THINGS
By HAROLD NICOLSON
AMAN came to see me the other day who had been in Finland until the moment of final capitulation and who still bore upon his forehead the signs of wear and tear. He spoke in calm anger about the slowness of the assistance rendered by the Allies to Finland as compared to the quick efficacy of the help given by Germany to Russia. He praised the conduct of certain of our representatives in Fin- land and denounced that of others. He was an outspoken man, and as he talked he fingered a badge he wore in the lapel of his coat. I asked him what it was. He said it was the badge of a Finnish non-commissioned officer ; he had taken an oath to Finland, and that oath he would keep until he died. He was determined immediately to join some new unit and to begin fighting all over again. He asked me whether I could help. " But surely," I said to him, " during your absence in Finland your age-group must have been called up over here? " " I am older than I look," he answered, " I am twenty-one." I assured him that in truth he bore the weight of his years with buoyancy. I added that a man of his strength, intelligence and experience ought to find no difficulty at all in being admitted to some fighting unit and of rapidly rising in the ranks. " But the difficulty is," he said " that I am an American." " That," I said " is of course, a quite insuperable difficulty," and we continued our conversation.
* * *
Previous page
