A Signaller's War
The War of the Guns. By Aubrey Wade. (Batsford. 7s. 6d.) _ _ , .
The War of the Guns is Mr. 'Wade's-Story of his experiences as a signaller in the Royal Artillery during 1917 and 1918. It has been given a lucid but rather superfluous introduction by Mr. Edmund Blunden, and is copiously illustrated by photo- graphs from the Imperial War Museum. The publishers explain that Mr. Wade allowed himself to be cut to make room for these pictures, some of which are very horrible and are, they say, included to discourage war and not to pander to mor- biAity. All are excellent examples of photography and some are most memorable. The ineffectual, groping but Would-be helpful prisoner at Lens, the hollow-eyed children—for they arc little more—who in the last extremity filled the gaps in the German ranks, the piteous Sunday finery of the refugees from Merville, the sodden desolation of Passchendaele, these are the living tragedies of war (for the mud of Passchendaele was a living tortured thing) and may disillusion any reader who still supposes war to be desirable. But I cannot think that the portrayal of rotting and mutilated corpses is either good or useful, and it is certainly not appropriate to the illus- tration of a story which inevitably deals at times with dreadfill things but never does so morbidly.
The story itself is refreshing to read at a time when Generals and their advocates are wrestling ad nauseam with each other's strategies and reputations. There is no higher criticism in it, very little introspection, and no axe to grind. There have been other and more gifted writers who saw the war from the ranks, but most of them have been professional authors, poets, philosophers, scholars or social reformers. The ordinary soldier was none of these things, nor was Mr. Wade. hence the value and interest of his book. ' He was no more than a boy when he went to France, but he was no tyro, for he had served two years in a Territorial battery in war time and was a specialist; proud of his craft. Ahnost at once he found himself in the Battle of Messinea. Then Pas.schendaele, a spell • of dysentery, Cambrai, the ominous pause before St. Quentin, the breaking of the Fifth Army, "ten days and nights of rearguard actions and hasty retirements and endless journeyings through the night, famished, unwashed and ever driven on by an unseen menace?' Then the turning of the tide, a short inspiriting burst of open warfare, sudden oblivion, hospital, the Armistice. Two crowded years in a boy's life.
He tells a few tall stories and makes a few mistakes. He knew little of what happened beyond the range of his own vision, little of the results of the battles in which he fought. But his record is vivid and without heroics. He was frightened, and tells you so. He sometimes disobeyed orders. He loathed his Sergeant-Major. He speaks of "the officer" vaguely, impersonally, with little enthusiasm and no disrespect. His Major was a proper sort of man. His Colonel's harangue on the glories and traditions of the Royal Horse Artillery left him cold. Generals lived miles behind the line and sent you cheerfully to be killed. It may be a libel and the " cheerfully" surely is, but that is what Signaller Wade and many of his Mates believed. Yet when General Phuner came to look- at the Battery and said "That's the style" you hear Signaller Wade echoing, perhaps a little grudgingly, "That's the style" a propos General Plainer. He did not like the war. He did not hate the Hun. But he went on wagging his flag in extreme terror and discomfort till a last merciful flash brought him oblivion, rest and the Armistice. In fact he was just that prosaic, unaccountable and undefeated creature, the British Soldier.
I think everyone will read his book with interest. I read it With something more, in the night hour when the mind throws back most readily the echoes of the past. As I closed it, it seemed as though a hand had drawn aside the frowsty blanket from a dug-out door. I saw the flickering candle, the switchboard, the improvised table smudged with candle-grease, pitted with smouldering cigarette ends ; and, framed in the ear- phones, a face, very young, very tired and infinitely, unreason- ingly enduring. And as I strolled out into the night to clear my brain I seemed to hear the distant grumble of the guns and tó- see -beyond the ridge the lights that soared in graceful curVes and drifted lingeringly down into extinction sixteen long yeari-
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