“War Without End”
(An Interlude.)
He came up to me and handed me a photograph. I took it, and beheld a being clad in a new khaki uniform and obviously conscious of the fact. An empty bandolier crossed his extended chest diagonally. His slouch hat was well tilted to the right, with the chin strap arranged just under the lower lip. The putties were immaculately entwined around his legs—in short the tout ensemble was decidedly smart and soldier-like. His right hand rested lightly on a Sheraton table; in the immediate background was a portion of a low ornamental garden wall, in the distance was a ruin principally composed of Ionic columns in various positions—presumably the devastating work of the warrior in the foreground, “Look on that,” he said bitterly, and as I returned it, “and on this, the backbone of the British Army,” smiting his manly breast. I looked, and in the bronzed, unshaven face and raggedly-apparelled figure before me, recognised a certain semblance to him of the photograph. I smiled sympathetically. “As it was,” quoth he, “now and ever shall be, war without end.” I turned to go, but was not fated to escape so easily. He held me with his bloodshot eyes, and perforce I stayed. With upraised voice he declaimed thus:
THE PSALM OF STRIFE.
(Being what the Yeoman said to the Psalmist.)
Tell me not in ceaseless rumours
That we soon are going home,
Just to cure our bitter humours,
While upon the veldt we roam.
War is real, and war is earnest,
And Pretoria warn’t the goal,
Out thou cam’st, but when returnest
Is not known to any soul.
Forward, fighting, smoking, chewing,
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
And arriving—just too late.
I fled.