DEATH AND LOVE
By F. TENNYSON JESSE " I am writing this because I want you to know what my feelings are at this time. If I survive, you will never read it ; you will only read it if I am killed. I want you to know what I felt before I died. I have wanted you to know it for a long while, and I have not been able to tell you. I could not talk about these things during the short but wonderful times we have had together ; to do so would have been to bring down upon us with crushing awareness that dreadful shadow which we have so miraculously dispelled. And after that first visit of 48 hours, when I came to you in Suffolk in September, I have not dared to speak again about what might happen to us. Our emotions were so harried then that I could never go through such torture with you again. But I do want to say certain things, though I find it very difficult to write them : my life is so unreal and my surroundings seem so extraordinary, even after ten months, that I cannot fix my coherent thoughts for very long. They are all inside me, but it is hard to bring them out. I do not want to die with them inside me.
I should hate this to be cold and perfect prose. I want it to be wild and passionate. I don't want to sit and think about the sen- tences. But the fact of my sitting here, writing a letter for you to read after my death, while my companion stifles my thoughts with his snores, is so extraordinary that heaven only knows how this will turn out. Pleasant, good-natured fool,—if he were to wake up and read this he would think me crazy.
My darling, when the war started we told each other, although at the time we were torn with the most fearful distress, that we both believed we should pull through safely. Now the situation has become far worse, worse than anyone thought possible, but I still believe it. Yes, truly. It is a wonderful thing to believe. If, years from now, I read this letter myself before I tear it up, I shall smile as I come to that, and congratulate myself on being a good prophet. But if you read it—oh, my poor darling, how you will weep over it. Dear, dear child, I cannot imagine it. I think I shall live. I do not know why I think so : S— F—, whom I sometimes talked to
about these things, was convinced that he would be killed. Strange if just the opposite should happen. One night I said to him, when we were both a bit tight : I don't care what they do to me. They can
tear me to pieces, they can kill me now or next year, but so long as I
die to stop them taking England, then I am satisfied.' He told me afterwards that what I said made him incredibly happy. I had never
said it to anyone before, but I said it with terrific vehemence, and I meant it. I had known it all along. I had known it ever since I joined the army.
Now that kind of talk is all very well for a man who has no real bonds on this earth. There are millions of them, and I've no doubt that they feel the same as I do. But my bonds with you are the strongest that a man can know. I meant it when I said that I would rather sever my bonds with you, lose all our love, all our life that has been so perfect, plunge myself into a darkness of which I know nothing, since I believe in no life after death—rather lose everything than see England defeated. Can you understand this ? Do you think I love England more than I love you ? You must never think that. I love nothing more than you. How •can I possibly compare the two ? I joined this war to fight for both of you ; my life depends equally on the survival of England and the survival of our love. When I try to separate the two, I find I cannot do it. There is nothing heroic about wishing to die for one's country : every volunteer in the forces is prepared to do it. That is what goes to make victory ; and if I can be an infinitesimal part of that victory, then that is enough. Oh my beloved, how impossible it is to write of such things. I only know that if in dying I can help England to win, then I shall die.
But what about you ? I should leave you behind. That is the dreadful part of it : that is what has sometimes made me long to be rid of it all and leave the war to others and fly with you out of reach of all this horror. But that is impossible. The thought of leaving you behind tortures me and here am I volunteering to die ! It is all so unreal. Can you see now how difficult it is for me to sort out my thoughts and write about dying, when all the time sorrow is plucking at my heart as I think of you reading this : reading that I who love you so completely have left you with tfiese thoughts in my head, and have left you with the full knowledge that all your life your arms will be outstretched towards me, and your dear heart weighed down by an inescapable misery. By all that we love, why should I be called upon to do such things ? I worship you with all my body and soul ; but I have given my body and soul to the cause of England, and if England wants them she must take them. You both possess me ; England has claimed me, and if she should give me back to you it will be because she knows that one so precious and dear as yourself cannot be allowed to suffer for the rest of your life.
What makes all this torturing thought so futile is that if I am killed I shall never know whether England was victorious or not. Or shall I ? I shall know it for this reason : that I do not believe England can ever be beaten. This is perhaps my clearest belief of all : clearer than belief in my own life, dearer than belief in the ultimate security of ourselves. England will not lose. You may know, my darling, when you read what I am writing, that this was the last thought that came to me before I died ; and that with it came some comfort in the fact that England's victory would bring some measure of safety and perhaps, in the end, of happiness for you. I do not believe in God, but I believe unshakably in the triumph of good against evil. I do not pray to God : I pray to the goodness of the earth and the goodness that is the rock of civilization and the foundation of all that is worth calling progress. These things can never be overthrown. England is the rock of civilization ; and upon that rock is founded the great love that lies between us two. If the rock is swept away from beneath us, what hope is there for us ? There is none : and therefore I will fight and die that the rock may stand firm.
You may say that if I die there is no hope for us in any case. True. But there is hope for you. You must not feel, dear beloved, that I am all that matters in the world. You will, I truly believe, find other sources of happiness. That is what I am fighting for : to make a world from which evil will be banished and in which real joy Will be possible. Joy for you, you you. I know that happiness will be possible, no matter what agony you may have to suffer in finding it•
I know that England will win. The possibility of our losing is something which I have refused to let myself think about, because it creates the hardest problem of all. If this struggle is to be lost, then every true patriot knows that he would rather die on the field than witness the results of defeat. But how can I say that ? How can I say that I would rather leave you defenceless in a cruel and hostile world than face the bitterness of that world beside you ? I cannot say it ; but, when you read this, you will know that I died with the belief of our victory strong in my heart, and that I am now beyond the reach of defeat. And you may know this too : that if I die and we are beaten, and if you see no prospect or possibility of happiness anywhere and if you decide then that you must take your life, then you need never ask yourself if I would have condemned you for it. Because that is what I should have done had I lived to see us brought to defeat ; I truly believe I should have killed you and killed myself. There would have been no hope for us : nothing but ruin and tragedy, and black, endless despair: The rock that upheld our love would have vanished for ever.
But all this will never happen, because England will win. I may die, but England will win. And what does my death matter, if there is a corner in the world in which you may discover happiness and know the meaning of beauty ? There will be such a corner ; wars are not fought for nothing ; I know it, and that is why I beg you to carry on."
Thus wrote this young soldier five years ago in a barracks in England. Thus wrote many thousands of men but few, if any, more beautifully. The Japanese pounded the position of him and his men with mortar fire and he ordered the men to the slit trenches. Not till it was over did they find that the heart that had beaten both for his wife and for England had been pierced by Japanese metal. His men grieved for him, for they loved him. We who are lefr remember the Battle of Britain and those. first blitzes and how we also felt, quite illogically, that England could not be beaten. And as long as she breeds men of this sort she never will be.
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