THE ANGELS OF MONS The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War by ARTHUR MACHEN 1915 Introduction I have been asked to write an introduction to the story of "TheBowmen", on its publication in book form together with three othertales of similar fashion. And I hesitate. This affair of "The Bowmen"has been such an odd one from first to last, so many queercomplications have entered into it, there have been so many and sodivers currents and cross-currents of rumour and speculationconcerning it, that I honestly do not know where to begin. I propose, then, to solve the difficulty by apologising for beginning at all. For, usually and fitly, the presence of an introduction is held toimply that there is something of consequence and importance to beintroduced. If, for example, a man has made an anthology of greatpoetry, he may well write an introduction justifying his principle ofselection, pointing out here and there, as the spirit moves him, highbeauties and supreme excellencies, discoursing of the magnates andlords and princes of literature, whom he is merely serving as groom ofthe chamber. Introductions, that is, belong to the masterpieces andclassics of the world, to the great and ancient and accepted things;and I am here introducing a short, small story of my own whichappeared in _The Evening News_ about ten months ago. I appreciate the absurdity, nay, the enormity of the position in allits grossness. And my excuse for these pages must be this: that thoughthe story itself is nothing, it has yet had such odd and unforeseenconsequences and adventures that the tale of them may possess someinterest. And then, again, there are certain psychological morals tobe drawn from the whole matter of the tale and its sequel of rumoursand discussions that are not, I think, devoid of consequence; and soto begin at the beginning. This was in last August, to be more precise, on the last Sunday oflast August. There were terrible things to be read on that hot Sundaymorning between meat and mass. It was in _The Weekly Dispatch_ that Isaw the awful account of the retreat from Mons. I no longer recollectthe details; but I have not forgotten the impression that was then onmy mind, I seemed to see a furnace of torment and death and agony andterror seven times heated, and in the midst of the burning was theBritish Army. In the midst of the flame, consumed by it and yetaureoled in it, scattered like ashes and yet triumphant, martyred andfor ever glorious. So I saw our men with a shining about them, so Itook these thoughts with me to church, and, I am sorry to say, wasmaking up a story in my head while the deacon was singing the Gospel. This was not the tale of "The Bowmen". It was the first sketch, as itwere, of "The Soldiers' Rest". I only wish I had been able to write itas I conceived it. The tale as it stands is, I think, a far betterpiece of craft than "The Bowmen", but the tale that came to me as theblue incense floated above the Gospel Book on the desk between thetapers: that indeed was a noble story--like all the stories that neverget written. I conceived the dead men coming up through the flames andin the flames, and being welcomed in the Eternal Tavern with songs andflowing cups and everlasting mirth. But every man is the child of hisage, however much he may hate it; and our popular religion has longdetermined that jollity is wicked. As far as I can make out modernProtestantism believes that Heaven is something like Evensong in anEnglish cathedral, the service by Stainer and the Dean preaching. Forthose opposed to dogma of any kind--even the mildest--I suppose it isheld that a Course of Ethical Lectures will be arranged. Well, I have long maintained that on the whole the average church, considered as a house of preaching, is a much more poisonous placethan the average tavern; still, as I say, one's age masters one, andclouds and bewilders the intelligence, and the real story of "TheSoldiers' Rest", with its "sonus epulantium in æterno convivio", wasruined at the moment of its birth, and it was some time later that theactual story got written. And in the meantime the plot of "The Bowmen"occurred to me. Now it has been murmured and hinted and suggested andwhispered in all sorts of quarters that before I wrote the tale I hadheard something. The most decorative of these legends is also the mostprecise: "I know for a fact that the whole thing was given him intypescript by a lady-in-waiting. " This was not the case; and allvaguer reports to the effect that I had heard some rumours or hints ofrumours are equally void of any trace of truth. Again I apologise for entering so pompously into the minutiæ of my bitof a story, as if it were the lost poems of Sappho; but it appearsthat the subject interests the public, and I comply with myinstructions. I take it, then, that the origins of "The Bowmen" werecomposite. First of all, all ages and nations have cherished thethought that spiritual hosts may come to the help of earthly arms, that gods and heroes and saints have descended from their highimmortal places to fight for their worshippers and clients. ThenKipling's story of the ghostly Indian regiment got in my head and gotmixed with the mediævalism that is always there; and so "The Bowmen"was written. I was heartily disappointed with it, I remember, andthought it--as I still think it--an indifferent piece of work. However, I have tried to write for these thirty-five long years, andif I have not become practised in letters, I am at least a past masterin the Lodge of Disappointment. Such as it was, "The Bowmen" appearedin _The Evening News_ of September 29th, 1914. Now the journalist does not, as a rule, dwell much on the prospect offame; and if he be an evening journalist, his anticipations ofimmortality are bounded by twelve o'clock at night at the latest; andit may well be that those insects which begin to live in the morningand are dead by sunset deem themselves immortal. Having written mystory, having groaned and growled over it and printed it, I certainlynever thought to hear another word of it. My colleague "The Londoner"praised it warmly to my face, as his kindly fashion is; entering, veryproperly, a technical caveat as to the language of the battle-cries ofthe bowmen. "Why should English archers use French terms?" he said. Ireplied that the only reason was this--that a "Monseigneur" here andthere struck me as picturesque; and I reminded him that, as a matterof cold historical fact, most of the archers of Agincourt weremercenaries from Gwent, my native country, who would appeal toMihangel and to saints not known to the Saxons--Teilo, Iltyd, Dewi, Cadwaladyr Vendigeid. And I thought that that was the first and lastdiscussion of "The Bowmen". But in a few days from its publication theeditor of _The Occult Review_ wrote to me. He wanted to know whetherthe story had any foundation in fact. I told him that it had nofoundation in fact of any kind or sort; I forget whether I added thatit had no foundation in rumour but I should think not, since to thebest of my belief there were no rumours of heavenly interposition inexistence at that time. Certainly I had heard of none. Soon afterwardsthe editor of _Light_ wrote asking a like question, and I made him alike reply. It seemed to me that I had stifled any "Bowmen" mythos inthe hour of its birth. A month or two later, I received several requests from editors ofparish magazines to reprint the story. I--or, rather, my editor--readily gave permission; and then, after another month or two, theconductor of one of these magazines wrote to me, saying that theFebruary issue containing the story had been sold out, while there wasstill a great demand for it. Would I allow them to reprint "TheBowmen" as a pamphlet, and would I write a short preface giving theexact authorities for the story? I replied that they might reprint inpamphlet form with all my heart, but that I could not give myauthorities, since I had none, the tale being pure invention. Thepriest wrote again, suggesting--to my amazement--that I must bemistaken, that the main "facts" of "The Bowmen" must be true, that myshare in the matter must surely have been confined to the elaborationand decoration of a veridical history. It seemed that my light fictionhad been accepted by the congregation of this particular church as thesolidest of facts; and it was then that it began to dawn on me that ifI had failed in the art of letters, I had succeeded, unwittingly, inthe art of deceit. This happened, I should think, some time in April, and the snowball of rumour that was then set rolling has been rollingever since, growing bigger and bigger, till it is now swollen to amonstrous size. It was at about this period that variants of my tale began to be toldas authentic histories. At first, these tales betrayed their relationto their original. In several of them the vegetarian restaurantappeared, and St. George was the chief character. In one case anofficer--name and address missing--said that there was a portrait ofSt. George in a certain London restaurant, and that a figure, justlike the portrait, appeared to him on the battlefield, and was invokedby him, with the happiest results. Another variant--this, I think, never got into print--told how dead Prussians had been found on thebattlefield with arrow wounds in their bodies. This notion amused me, as I had imagined a scene, when I was thinking out the story, in whicha German general was to appear before the Kaiser to explain hisfailure to annihilate the English. "All-Highest, " the general was to say, "it is true, it is impossibleto deny it. The men were killed by arrows; the shafts were found intheir bodies by the burying parties. " I rejected the idea as over-precipitous even for a mere fantasy. I wastherefore entertained when I found that what I had refused as toofantastical for fantasy was accepted in certain occult circles as hardfact. Other versions of the story appeared in which a cloud interposedbetween the attacking Germans and the defending British. In someexamples the cloud served to conceal our men from the advancing enemy;in others, it disclosed shining shapes which frightened the horses ofthe pursuing German cavalry. St. George, it will he noted, hasdisappeared--he persisted some time longer in certain Roman Catholicvariants--and there are no more bowmen, no more arrows. But so farangels are not mentioned; yet they are ready to appear, and I thinkthat I have detected the machine which brought them into the story. In "The Bowmen" my imagined soldier saw "a long line of shapes, with ashining about them. " And Mr. A. P. Sinnett, writing in the May issue of_The Occult Review_, reporting what he had heard, states that "thosewho could see said they saw 'a row of shining beings' between the twoarmies. " Now I conjecture that the word "shining" is the link betweenmy tale and the derivative from it. In the popular view shining andbenevolent supernatural beings are angels, and so, I believe, theBowmen of my story have become "the Angels of Mons. " In this shapethey have been received with respect and credence everywhere, oralmost everywhere. And here, I conjecture, we have the key to the large popularity of thedelusion--as I think it. We have long ceased in England to take muchinterest in saints, and in the recent revival of the cultus of St. George, the saint is little more than a patriotic figurehead. And theappeal to the saints to succour us is certainly not a common Englishpractice; it is held Popish by most of our countrymen. But angels, with certain reservations, have retained their popularity, and so, when it was settled that the English army in its dire peril wasdelivered by angelic aid, the way was clear for general belief, andfor the enthusiasms of the religion of the man in the street. And sosoon as the legend got the title "The Angels of Mons" it becameimpossible to avoid it. It permeated the Press: it would not beneglected; it appeared in the most unlikely quarters--in _Truth_ and_Town Topics_, _The New Church Weekly_ (Swedenborgian) and _JohnBull_. The editor of _The Church Times_ has exercised a wise reserve:he awaits that evidence which so far is lacking; but in one issue ofthe paper I noted that the story furnished a text for a sermon, thesubject of a letter, and the matter for an article. People send mecuttings from provincial papers containing hot controversy as to theexact nature of the appearances; the "Office Window" of _The DailyChronicle_ suggests scientific explanations of the hallucination; the_Pall Mall_ in a note about St. James says he is of the brotherhood ofthe Bowmen of Mons--this reversion to the bowmen from the angels beingpossibly due to the strong statements that I have made on the matter. The pulpits both of the Church and of Non-conformity have been busy:Bishop Welldon, Dean Hensley Henson (a disbeliever), Bishop TaylorSmith (the Chaplain-General), and many other clergy have occupiedthemselves with the matter. Dr. Horton preached about the "angels" atManchester; Sir Joseph Compton Rickett (President of the NationalFederation of Free Church Councils) stated that the soldiers at thefront had seen visions and dreamed dreams, and had given testimony ofpowers and principalities fighting for them or against them. Letterscome from all the ends of the earth to the Editor of _The EveningNews_ with theories, beliefs, explanations, suggestions. It is allsomewhat wonderful; one can say that the whole affair is apsychological phenomenon of considerable interest, fairly comparablewith the great Russian delusion of last August and September. * * * * * Now it is possible that some persons, judging by the tone of theseremarks of mine, may gather the impression that I am a profounddisbeliever in the possibility of any intervention of thesuper-physical order in the affairs of the physical order. They willbe mistaken if they make this inference; they will be mistaken if theysuppose that I think miracles in Judæa credible but miracles in Franceor Flanders incredible. I hold no such absurdities. But I confess, very frankly, that I credit none of the "Angels of Mons" legends, partly because I see, or think I see, their derivation from my ownidle fiction, but chiefly because I have, so far, not received one jotor tittle of evidence that should dispose me to belief. It is idle, indeed, and foolish enough for a man to say: "I am sure that story isa lie, because the supernatural element enters into it;" here, indeed, we have the maggot writhing in the midst of corrupted offal denyingthe existence of the sun. But if this fellow be a fool--as he is--equally foolish is he who says, "If the tale has anything of thesupernatural it is true, and the less evidence the better;" and I amafraid this tends to be the attitude of many who call themselvesoccultists. I hope that I shall never get to that frame of mind. So Isay, not that super-normal interventions are impossible, not that theyhave not happened during this war--I know nothing as to that point, one way or the other--but that there is not one atom of evidence (sofar) to support the current stories of the angels of Mons. For, be itremarked, these stories are specific stories. They rest on the second, third, fourth, fifth hand stories told by "a soldier, " by "anofficer, " by "a Catholic correspondent, " by "a nurse, " by any numberof anonymous people. Indeed, names have been mentioned. A lady's namehas been drawn, most unwarrantably as it appears to me, into thediscussion, and I have no doubt that this lady has been subject to agood deal of pestering and annoyance. She has written to the Editor of_The Evening News_ denying all knowledge of the supposed miracle. ThePsychical Research Society's expert confesses that no real evidencehas been proffered to her Society on the matter. And then, to myamazement, she accepts as fact the proposition that some men on thebattlefield have been "hallucinated, " and proceeds to give the theoryof sensory hallucination. She forgets that, by her own showing, thereis no reason to suppose that anybody has been hallucinated at all. Someone (unknown) has met a nurse (unnamed) who has talked to asoldier (anonymous) who has seen angels. But _that_ is not evidence;and not even Sam Weller at his gayest would have dared to offer it assuch in the Court of Common Pleas. So far, then, nothing remotelyapproaching proof has been offered as to any supernatural interventionduring the Retreat from Mons. Proof may come; if so, it will beinteresting and more than interesting. But, taking the affair as it stands at present, how is it that anation plunged in materialism of the grossest kind has accepted idlerumours and gossip of the supernatural as certain truth? The answer iscontained in the question: it is precisely because our wholeatmosphere is materialist that we are ready to credit anything--savethe truth. Separate a man from good drink, he will swallow methylatedspirit with joy. Man is created to be inebriated; to be "nobly wild, not mad. " Suffer the Cocoa Prophets and their company to seduce him inbody and spirit, and he will get himself stuff that will make himignobly wild and mad indeed. It took hard, practical men of affairs, business men, advanced thinkers, Freethinkers, to believe in MadameBlavatsky and Mahatmas and the famous message from the Golden Shore:"Judge's plan is right; follow him and _stick_. " And the main responsibility for this dismal state of affairsundoubtedly lies on the shoulders of the majority of the clergy of theChurch of England. Christianity, as Mr. W. L. Courtney has so admirablypointed out, is a great Mystery Religion; it is _the_ MysteryReligion. Its priests are called to an awful and tremendous hierurgy;its pontiffs are to be the pathfinders, the bridge-makers between theworld of sense and the world of spirit. And, in fact, they pass theirtime in preaching, not the eternal mysteries, but a twopenny morality, in changing the Wine of Angels and the Bread of Heaven into gingerbeerand mixed biscuits: a sorry transubstantiation, a sad alchemy, as itseems to me. The Bowmen It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the authority ofthe Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. Butit was on the most awful day of that awful time, on the day when ruinand disaster came so near that their shadow fell over London far away;and, without any certain news, the hearts of men failed within themand grew faint; as if the agony of the army in the battlefield hadentered into their souls. On this dreadful day, then, when three hundred thousand men in armswith all their artillery swelled like a flood against the littleEnglish company, there was one point above all other points in ourbattle line that was for a time in awful danger, not merely of defeat, but of utter annihilation. With the permission of the Censorship andof the military expert, this corner may, perhaps, be described as asalient, and if this angle were crushed and broken, then the Englishforce as a whole would be shattered, the Allied left would be turned, and Sedan would inevitably follow. All the morning the German guns had thundered and shrieked againstthis corner, and against the thousand or so of men who held it. Themen joked at the shells, and found funny names for them, and had betsabout them, and greeted them with scraps of music-hall songs. But theshells came on and burst, and tore good Englishmen limb from limb, andtore brother from brother, and as the heat of the day increased so didthe fury of that terrific cannonade. There was no help, it seemed. TheEnglish artillery was good, but there was not nearly enough of it; itwas being steadily battered into scrap iron. There comes a moment in a storm at sea when people say to one another, "It is at its worst; it can blow no harder, " and then there is a blastten times more fierce than any before it. So it was in these Britishtrenches. There were no stouter hearts in the whole world than the hearts ofthese men; but even they were appalled as this seven-times-heatedhell of the German cannonade fell upon them and overwhelmed them anddestroyed them. And at this very moment they saw from their trenchesthat a tremendous host was moving against their lines. Five hundred ofthe thousand remained, and as far as they could see the Germaninfantry was pressing on against them, column upon column, a greyworld of men, ten thousand of them, as it appeared afterwards. There was no hope at all. They shook hands, some of them. One manimprovised a new version of the battlesong, "Good-bye, good-bye toTipperary, " ending with "And we shan't get there". And they all wenton firing steadily. The officers pointed out that such an opportunityfor high-class, fancy shooting might never occur again; the Germansdropped line after line; the Tipperary humorist asked, "What priceSidney Street?" And the few machine guns did their best. But everybodyknew it was of no use. The dead grey bodies lay in companies andbattalions, as others came on and on and on, and they swarmed andstirred and advanced from beyond and beyond. "World without end. Amen, " said one of the British soldiers with someirrelevance as he took aim and fired. And then he remembered-he sayshe cannot think why or wherefore--a queer vegetarian restaurant inLondon where he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutletsmade of lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the platesin this restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in blue, with the motto, _Adsit Anglis Sanctus Geogius_--May St. George be apresent help to the English. This soldier happened to know Latin andother useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the greyadvancing mass--300 yards away--he uttered the pious vegetarianmotto. He went on firing to the end, and at last Bill on his right hadto clout him cheerfully over the head to make him stop, pointing outas he did so that the King's ammunition cost money and was not lightlyto be wasted in drilling funny patterns into dead Germans. For as the Latin scholar uttered his invocation he felt somethingbetween a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body. Theroar of the battle died down in his ears to a gentle murmur; insteadof it, he says, he heard a great voice and a shout louder than athunder-peal crying, "Array, array, array!" His heart grew hot as a burning coal, it grew cold as ice within him, as it seemed to him that a tumult of voices answered to his summons. He heard, or seemed to hear, thousands shouting: "St. George! St. George!" "Ha! messire; ha! sweet Saint, grant us good deliverance!" "St. George for merry England!" "Harow! Harow! Monseigneur St. George, succour us. " "Ha! St. George! Ha! St. George! a long bow and a strong bow. " "Heaven's Knight, aid us!" And as the soldier heard these voices he saw before him, beyond thetrench, a long line of shapes, with a shining about them. They werelike men who drew the bow, and with another shout their cloud ofarrows flew singing and tingling through the air towards the Germanhosts. The other men in the trench were firing all the while. They had nohope; but they aimed just as if they had been shooting at Bisley. Suddenly one of them lifted up his voice in the plainest English, "Gawd help us!" he bellowed to the man next to him, "but we'reblooming marvels! Look at those grey. .. Gentlemen, look at them! D'yesee them? They're not going down in dozens, nor in 'undreds; it'sthousands, it is. Look! look! there's a regiment gone while I'mtalking to ye. " "Shut it!" the other soldier bellowed, taking aim, "what are yegassing about!" But he gulped with astonishment even as he spoke, for, indeed, thegrey men were falling by the thousands. The English could hear theguttural scream of the German officers, the crackle of their revolversas they shot the reluctant; and still line after line crashed to theearth. All the while the Latin-bred soldier heard the cry: "Harow! Harow!Monseigneur, dear saint, quick to our aid! St. George help us!" "High Chevalier, defend us!" The singing arrows fled so swift and thick that they darkened the air;the heathen horde melted from before them. "More machine guns!" Bill yelled to Tom. "Don't hear them, " Tom yelled back. "But, thank God, anyway; they'vegot it in the neck. " In fact, there were ten thousand dead German soldiers left before thatsalient of the English army, and consequently there was no Sedan. InGermany, a country ruled by scientific principles, the Great GeneralStaff decided that the contemptible English must have employed shellscontaining an unknown gas of a poisonous nature, as no wounds werediscernible on the bodies of the dead German soldiers. But the man whoknew what nuts tasted like when they called themselves steak knew alsothat St. George had brought his Agincourt Bowmen to help the English. The Soldiers' Rest The soldier with the ugly wound in the head opened his eyes at last, and looked about him with an air of pleasant satisfaction. He still felt drowsy and dazed with some fierce experience throughwhich he had passed, but so far he could not recollect much about it. But--an agreeable glow began to steal about his heart--such a glow ascomes to people who have been in a tight place and have come throughit better than they had expected. In its mildest form this set ofemotions may be observed in passengers who have crossed the Channel ona windy day without being sick. They triumph a little internally, andare suffused with vague, kindly feelings. The wounded soldier was somewhat of this disposition as he opened hiseyes, pulled himself together, and looked about him. He felt a senseof delicious ease and repose in bones that had been racked and weary, and deep in the heart that had so lately been tormented there was anassurance of comfort--of the battle won. The thundering, roaring waveswere passed; he had entered into the haven of calm waters. Afterfatigues and terrors that as yet he could not recollect he seemed nowto be resting in the easiest of all easy chairs in a dim, low room. In the hearth there was a glint of fire and a blue, sweet-scented puffof wood smoke; a great black oak beam roughly hewn crossed theceiling. Through the leaded panes of the windows he saw a rich glow ofsunlight, green lawns, and against the deepest and most radiant of allblue skies the wonderful far-lifted towers of a vast, Gothiccathedral--mystic, rich with imagery. "Good Lord!" he murmured to himself. "I didn't know they had suchplaces in France. It's just like Wells. And it might be the other daywhen I was going past the Swan, just as it might be past that window, and asked the ostler what time it was, and he says, 'What time? Why, summer-time'; and there outside it looks like summer that would lastfor ever. If this was an inn they ought to call it _The Soldiers'Rest_. " He dozed off again, and when he opened his eyes once more a kindlylooking man in some sort of black robe was standing by him. "It's all right now, isn't it?" he said, speaking in good English. "Yes, thank you, sir, as right as can be. I hope to be back againsoon. " "Well well; but how did you come here? Where did you get that?" Hepointed to the wound on the soldier's forehead. The soldier put his hand: up to his brow and looked dazed and puzzled. "Well, sir, " he said at last, "it was like this, to begin at thebeginning. You know how we came over in August, and there we were inthe thick of it, as you might say, in a day or two. An awful time itwas, and I don't know how I got through it alive. My best friend waskilled dead beside me as we lay in the trenches. By Cambrai, I thinkit was. "Then things got a little quieter for a bit, and I was quartered in avillage for the best part of a week. She was a very nice lady where Iwas, and she treated me proper with the best of everything. Herhusband he was fighting; but she had the nicest little boy I everknew, a little fellow of five, or six it might be, and we got onsplendid. The amount of their lingo that kid taught me--'We, we' and'Bong swot' and 'Commong voo potty we' and all--and I taught himEnglish. You should have heard that nipper say ''Arf a mo', old un!'It was a treat. "Then one day we got surprised. There was about a dozen of us in thevillage, and two or three hundred Germans came down on us early onemorning. They got us; no help for 'it. Before we could shoot. "Well there we were. They tied our hands behind our backs, and smackedour faces and kicked us a bit, and we were lined up opposite the housewhere I'd been staying. "And then that poor little chap broke away from his mother, and he runout and saw one of the Boshes, as we call them, fetch me one over thejaw with his clenched fist. Oh dear! oh dear! he might have done it adozen times if only that little child hadn't seen him. "He had a poor bit of a toy I'd bought him at the village shop; a toygun it was. And out he came running, as I say, Crying out something inFrench like 'Bad man! bad man! don't hurt my Anglish or I shoot you';and he pointed that gun at the German soldier. The German, he took hisbayonet, and he drove it right through the poor little chap's throat. " The soldier's face worked and twitched and twisted itself into a sortof grin, and he sat grinding his teeth and staring at the man in theblack robe. He was silent for a little. And then he found his voice, and the oaths rolled terrible, thundering from him, as he cursed thatmurderous wretch, and bade him go down and burn for ever in hell. Andthe tears were raining down his face, and they choked him at last. "I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, " he said, "especially you being aminister of some kind, I suppose; but I can't help it, he was such adear little man. " The man in black murmured something to himself: "_Pretiosa inconspectu Domini mors innocentium ejus_"--Dear in the sight of theLord is the death of His innocents. Then he put a hand very gently onthe soldier's shoulder. "Never mind, " said he; "I've seen some service in my time, myself. Butwhat about that wound?" "Oh, that; that's nothing. But I'll tell you how I got it. It was justlike this. The Germans had us fair, as I tell you, and they shut us upin a barn in the village; just flung us on the ground and left us tostarve seemingly. They barred up the big door of the barn, and put asentry there, and thought we were all right. "There were sort of slits like very narrow windows in one of thewalls, and on the second day it was, I was looking out of these slitsdown the street, and I could see those German devils were up tomischief. They were planting their machine-guns everywhere handy wherean ordinary man coming up the street would never see them, but I seethem, and I see the infantry lining up behind the garden walls. Then Ihad a sort of a notion of what was coming; and presently, sureenough, I could hear some of our chaps singing 'Hullo, hullo, hullo!'in the distance; and I says to myself, 'Not this time. ' "So I looked about me, and I found a hole under the wall; a kind of adrain I should think it was, and I found I could just squeeze through. And I got out and crept, round, and away I goes running down thestreet, yelling for all I was worth, just as our chaps were gettinground the corner at the bottom. 'Bang, bang!' went the guns, behind meand in front of me, and on each side of me, and then--bash! somethinghit me on the head and over I went; and I don't remember anything moretill I woke up here just now. " The soldier lay back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he saw that there were other people in the roombesides the minister in the black robes. One was a man in a big blackcloak. He had a grim old face and a great beaky nose. He shook thesoldier by the hand. "By God! sir, " he said, "you're a credit to the British Army; you're adamned fine soldier and a good man, and, by God! I'm proud to shakehands with you. " And then someone came out of the shadow, someone in queer clothes suchas the soldier had seen worn by the heralds when he had been on dutyat the opening of Parliament by the King. "Now, by _Corpus Domini_, " this man said, "of all knights ye benoblest and gentlest, and ye be of fairest report, and now ye be abrother of the noblest brotherhood that ever was since this world'sbeginning, since ye have yielded dear life for your friends' sake. " The soldier did not understand what the man was saying to him. Therewere others, too, in strange dresses, who came and spoke to him. Somespoke in what sounded like French. He cduld not make it out; but heknew that they all spoke kindly and praised him. "What does it all mean?" he said to the minister. "What are theytalking about? They don't think I'd let down my pals?" "Drink this, " said the minister, and he handed the soldier a greatsilver cup, brimming with wine. The soldier took a deep draught, and in that moment all his sorrowspassed from him. "What is it?" he asked? "_Vin nouveau du Royaume_, " said the minister. "New Wine of theKingdom, you call it. " And then he bent down and murmured in thesoldier's ear. "What, " said the wounded man, "the place they used to tell us about inSunday school? With such drink and such joy--" His voice was hushed. For as he looked at the minister the fashion ofhis vesture was changed. The black robe seemed to melt away from him. He was all in armour, if armour be made of starlight, of the rose ofdawn, and of sunset fires; and he lifted up a great sword of flame. Full in the midst, his Cross of Red Triumphant Michael brandished, And trampled the Apostate's pride. The Monstrance Then it fell out in the sacring of the Mass that right as the priest heaved up the Host there came a beam redder than any rose and smote upon it, and then it was changed bodily into the shape and fashion of a Child having his arms stretched forth, as he had been nailed upon the Tree. --Old Romance. So far things were going very well indeed. The night was thick andblack and cloudy, and the German force had come three-quarters of theirway or more without an alarm. There was no challenge from the Englishlines; and indeed the English were being kept busy by a high shell-fireon their front. This had been the German plan; and it was coming offadmirably. Nobody thought that there was any danger on the left; and sothe Prussians, writhing on their stomachs over the ploughed field, weredrawing nearer and nearer to the wood. Once there they could establishthemselves comfortably and securely during what remained of the night;and at dawn the English left would be hopelessly enfiladed--and therewould be another of those movements which people who really understandmilitary matters call "readjustments of our line. " The noise made by the men creeping and crawling over the fields wasdrowned by the cannonade, from the English side as well as the German. On the English centre and right things were indeed very brisk; the bigguns were thundering and shrieking and roaring, the machine-guns werekeeping up the very devil's racket; the flares and illuminating shellswere as good as the Crystal Palace in the old days, as the soldierssaid to one another. All this had been thought of and thought out onthe other side. The German force was beautifully organised. The men whocrept nearer and nearer to the wood carried quite a number of machineguns in bits on their backs; others of them had small bags full ofsand; yet others big bags that were empty. When the wood was reachedthe sand from the small bags was to be emptied into the big bags; themachine-gun parts were to be put together, the guns mounted behind thesandbag redoubt, and then, as Major Von und Zu pleasantly observed, "the English pigs shall to gehenna-fire quickly come. " The major was so well pleased with the way things had gone that hepermitted himself a very low and guttural chuckle; in another tenminutes success would be assured. He half turned his head round towhisper a caution about some detail of the sandbag business to the bigsergeant-major, Karl Heinz, who was crawling just behind him. At thatinstant Karl Heinz leapt into the air with a scream that rent throughthe night and through all the roaring of the artillery. He cried in aterrible voice, "The Glory of the Lord!" and plunged and pitchedforward, stone dead. They said that his face as he stood up there andcried aloud was as if it had been seen through a sheet of flame. "They" were one or two out of the few who got back to the German lines. Most of the Prussians stayed in the ploughed field. Karl Heinz's screamhad frozen the blood of the English soldiers, but it had also ruinedthe major's plans. He and his men, caught all unready, clumsy with theburdens that they carried, were shot to pieces; hardly a score of themreturned. The rest of the force were attended to by an English buryingparty. According to custom the dead men were searched before they wereburied, and some singular relies of the campaign were found upon them, but nothing so singular as Karl Heinz's diary. He had been keeping it for some time. It began with entries aboutbread and sausage and the ordinary incidents of the trenches; hereand there Karl wrote about an old grandfather, and a big china pipe, and pinewoods and roast goose. Then the diarist seemed to get fidgetyabout his health. Thus: April 17. --Annoyed for some days by murmuring sounds in my head. I trust I shall not become deaf, like my departed uncle Christopher. April 20. --The noise in my head grows worse; it is a humming sound. It distracts me; twice I have failed to hear the captain and have been reprimanded. April 22. --So bad is my head that I go to see the doctor. He speaks of tinnitus, and gives me an inhaling apparatus that shall reach, he says, the middle ear. April 25. --The apparatus is of no use. The sound is now become like the booming of a great church bell. It reminds me of the bell at St. Lambart on that terrible day of last August. April 26. --I could swear that it is the bell of St. Lambart that I hear all the time. They rang it as the procession came out of the church. The man's writing, at first firm enough, begins to straggle unevenlyover the page at this point. The entries show that he became convincedthat he heard the bell of St. Lambart's Church ringing, though (as heknew better than most men) there had been no bell and no church at St. Lambart's since the summer of 1914. There was no village either--thewhole place was a rubbish-heap. Then the unfortunate Karl Heinz was beset with other troubles. May 2. --I fear I am becoming ill. To-day Joseph Kleist, who is next to me in the trench, asked me why I jerked my head to the right so constantly. I told him to hold his tongue; but this shows that I am noticed. I keep fancying that there is something white just beyond the range of my sight on the right hand. May 3. --This whiteness is now quite clear, and in front of me. All this day it has slowly passed before me. I asked Joseph Kleist if he saw a piece of newspaper just beyond the trench. He stared at me solemnly--he is a stupid fool--and said, "There is no paper. " May 4. --It looks like a white robe. There was a strong smell of incense to-day in the trench. No one seemed to notice it. There is decidedly a white robe, and I think I can see feet, passing very slowly before me at this moment while I write. There is no space here for continuous extracts from Karl Heinz's diary. But to condense with severity, it would seem that he slowly gatheredabout himself a complete set of sensory hallucinations. First theauditory hallucination of the sound of a bell, which the doctor calledtinnitus. Then a patch of white growing into a white robe, then thesmell of incense. At last he lived in two worlds. He saw his trench, and the level before it, and the English lines; he talked with hiscomrades and obeyed orders, though with a certain difficulty; but healso heard the deep boom of St. Lambart's bell, and saw continuallyadvancing towards him a white procession of little children, led by aboy who was swinging a censer. There is one extraordinary entry: "Butin August those children carried no lilies; now they have lilies intheir hands. Why should they have lilies?" It is interesting to note the transition over the border line. AfterMay 2 there is no reference in the diary to bodily illness, with twonotable exceptions. Up to and including that date the sergeant knowsthat he is suffering from illusions; after that he accepts hishallucinations as actualities. The man who cannot see what he sees andhear what he hears is a fool. So he writes: "I ask who is singing 'AveMaria Stella. ' That blockhead Friedrich Schumacher raises his crest andanswers insolently that no one sings, since singing is strictlyforbidden for the present. " A few days before the disastrous night expedition the last figure inthe procession appeared to those sick eyes. The old priest now comes in his golden robe, the two boys holding each side of it. He is looking just as he did when he died, save that when he walked in St. Lambart there was no shining round his head. But this is illusion and contrary to reason, since no one has a shining about his head. I must take some medicine. Note here that Karl Heinz absolutely accepts the appearance of themartyred priest of St. Lambart as actual, while he thinks that the halomust be an illusion; and so he reverts again to his physical condition. The priest held up both his hands, the diary states, "as if there weresomething between them. But there is a sort of cloud or dimness overthis object, whatever it may be. My poor Aunt Kathie suffered muchfrom her eyes in her old age. " * * * * * One can guess what the priest of St. Lambart carried in his hands whenhe and the little children went out into the hot sunlight to imploremercy, while the great resounding bell of St. Lambart boomed over theplain. Karl Heinz knew what happened then; they said that it was hewho killed the old priest and helped to crucify the little childagainst the church door. The baby was only three years old. He diedcalling piteously for "mummy" and "daddy. " * * * * * And those who will may guess what Karl Heinz saw when the mist clearedfrom before the monstrance in the priest's hands. Then he shrieked anddied. The Dazzling Light The new head-covering is made of heavy steel, which has been specialty treated to increase its resisting power. The walls protecting the skull are particularly thick, and the weight of the helmet renders its use in open warfare out of the question. The rim is large, like that of the headpiece of Mambrino, and the soldier can at will either bring the helmet forward and protect his eyes or wear it so as to protect the base of the skull . . . Military experts admit that continuance of the present trench warfare may lead to those engaged in it, especially bombing parties and barbed wire cutters, being more heavily armoured than the knights, who fought at Bouvines and at Agincourt. --_The Times_, July 22, 1915 The war is already a fruitful mother of legends. Some people thinkthat there are too many war legends, and a Croydon gentleman--or lady, I am not sure which--wrote to me quite recently telling me that acertain particular legend, which I will not specify, had become the"chief horror of the war. " There may be something to be said for thispoint of view, but it strikes me as interesting that the oldmyth-making faculty has survived into these days, a relic of noble, far-off Homeric battles. And after all, what do we know? It does notdo to be too sure that this, that, or the other hasn't happened andcouldn't have happened. What follows, at any rate, has no claim to be considered either aslegend or as myth. It is merely one of the odd circumstances of thesetimes, and I have no doubt it can easily be "explained away. " In fact, the rationalistic explanation of the whole thing is patent and on thesurface. There is only one little difficulty, and that, I fancy, is byno means insuperable. In any case this one knot or tangle may be putdown as a queer coincidence and nothing more. Here, then, is the curiosity or oddity in question. A young fellow, whom we will call for avoidance of all identification Delamere Smith--he is now Lieutenant Delamere Smith--was spending his holidays on thecoast of west South Wales at the beginning of the war. He wassomething or other not very important in the City, and in his leisurehours he smattered lightly and agreeably a little literature, a littleart, a little antiquarianism. He liked the Italian primitives, he knewthe difference between first, second, and third pointed, he had lookedthrough Boutell's "Engraved Brasses. " He had been heard indeed tospeak with enthusiasm of the brasses of Sir Robert de Septvans and SirRoger de Trumpington. One morning--he thinks it must have been the morning of August 16, 1914--the sun shone so brightly into his room that he woke early, andthe fancy took him that it would be fine to sit on the cliffs in thepure sunlight. So he dressed and went out, and climbed up GiltarPoint, and sat there enjoying the sweet air and the radiance of thesea, and the sight of the fringe of creaming foam about the greyfoundations of St. Margaret's Island. Then he looked beyond and gazedat the new white monastery on Caldy, and wondered who the architectwas, and how he had contrived to make the group of buildings lookexactly like the background of a mediæval picture. After about an hour of this and a couple of pipes, Smith confessesthat he began to feel extremely drowsy. He was just wondering whetherit would be pleasant to stretch himself out on the wild thyme thatscented the high place and go to sleep till breakfast, when themounting sun caught one of the monastery windows, and Smith staredsleepily at the darting flashing light till it dazzled him. Then hefelt "queer. " There was an odd sensation as if the top of his headwere dilating and contracting, and then he says he had a sort ofshock, something between a mild current of electricity and thesensation of putting one's hand into the ripple of a swift brook. Now, what happened next Smith cannot describe at all clearly. He knewhe was on Giltar, looking across the waves to Caldy; he heard all thewhile the hollow, booming tide in the caverns of the rocks far belowhim, And yet he saw, as if in a glass, a very different country--alevel fenland cut by slow streams, by long avenues of trimmed trees. "It looked, " he says, "as if it ought to have been a lonely country, but it was swarming with men; they were thick as ants in an anthill. And they were all dressed in armour; that was the strange thing aboutit. "I thought I was standing by what looked as if it had been afarmhouse; but it was all battered to bits, just a heap of ruins andrubbish. All that was left was one tall round chimney, shaped verymuch like the fifteenth-century chimneys in Pembrokeshire. Andthousands and tens of thousands went marching by. "They were all in armour, and in all sorts of armour. Some of them hadoverlapping tongues of bright metal fastened on their clothes, otherswere in chain mail from head to foot, others were in heavy platearmour. "They wore helmets of all shapes and sorts and sizes. One regiment hadsteel caps with wide trims, something like the old barbers' basins. Another lot had knights' tilting helmets on, closed up so that youcouldn't see their faces. Most of them wore metal gauntlets, either ofsteel rings or plates, and they had steel over their boots. A greatmany had things like battle-maces swinging by their sides, and allthese fellows carried a sort of string of big metal balls round theirwaist. Then a dozen regiments went by, every man with a steel shieldslung over his shoulder. The last to go by were cross-bowmen. " In fact, it appeared to Delamere Smith that he watched the passing ofa host of men in mediæval armour before him, and yet he knew--by theposition of the sun and of a rosy cloud that was passing over theWorm's Head--that this vision, or whatever it was, only lasted asecond or two. Then that slight sense of shock returned, and Smithreturned to the contemplation of the physical phenomena of thePembrokeshire coast--blue waves, grey St. Margaret's, and Caldy Abbeywhite in the sunlight. It will be said, no doubt, and very likely with truth, that Smith fellasleep on Giltar, and mingled in a dream the thought of the great warjust begun with his smatterings of mediæval battle and arms andarmour. The explanation seems tolerable enough. But there is the one little difficulty. It has been said that Smith isnow Lieutenant Smith. He got his commission last autumn, and went outin May. He happens to speak French rather well, and so he has becomewhat is called, I believe, an officer of liaison, or some such term. Anyhow, he is often behind the French lines. He was home on short leave last week, and said: "Ten days ago I was ordered to ----. I got there early in the morning, and had to wait a bit before I could see the General. I looked aboutme, and there on the left of us was a farm shelled into a heap ofruins, with one round chimney standing, shaped like the 'Flemish'chimneys in Pembrokeshire. And then the men in armour marched by, justas I had seen them--French regiments. The things like battle-maceswere bomb-throwers, and the metal balls round the men's waists werethe bombs. They told me that the cross-bows were used forbomb-shooting. "The march I saw was part of a big movement; you will hear more of itbefore long. " The Bowmen And Other Noble Ghosts By "The Londoner" There was a journalist--and the _Evening News_ reader well knows theinitials of his name--who lately sat down to write a story. * * Of course his story had to be about the war; there are no otherstories nowadays. And so he wrote of English soldiers who, in the duskon a field of France, faced the sullen mass of the oncoming Huns. Theywere few against fearful odds, but, as they sent the breech-bolt homeand aimed and fired, they became aware that others fought beside them. Down the air came cries to St. George and twanging of the bow-string;the old bowmen of England had risen at England's need from theirgraves in that French earth and were fighting for England. * * He said that he made up that story by himself, that he sat down andwrote it out of his head. But others knew better. It must really havehappened. There was, I remember, a clergyman of good credit who toldhim that he was clean mistaken; the archers had really and truly risenup to fight for England: the tale was all up and down the front. For my part I had thought that he wrote out of his head; I had seenhim at the detestable job of doing it. I myself have hated thisbusiness of writing ever since I found out that it was not so easy asit looks, and I can always spare a little sympathy for a man who isdriving a pen to the task of putting words in their right places. Yetthe clergyman persuaded me at last. Who am I that I should doubt thefaith of a clerk in holy orders? It must have happened. Those archersfought for us, and the grey-goose feather has flown once again inEnglish battle. * * Since that day I look eagerly for the ghosts who must be taking theirshare in this world-war. Never since the world began was such a war asthis: surely Marlborough and the Duke, Talbot and Harry of Monmouth, and many another shadowy captain must be riding among our horsemen. The old gods of war are wakened by this loud clamour of the guns. * * All the lands are astir. It is not enough that Asia should be humminglike an angry hive and the far islands in arms, Australia sending heryoung men and Canada making herself a camp. When we talk over the warnews, we call up ancient names: we debate how Rome stands and what isthe matter with Greece. * * As for Greece, I have ceased to talk of her. If I wanted to sayanything about Greece I should get down the Poetry Book and quote LordByron's fine old ranting verse. "The mountains look on Marathon--andMarathon looks on the sea. " But "standing on the Persians' grave"Greece seems in the same humour that made Lord Byron give her up as ahopelessly flabby country. * * "'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more" is as true as ever it was. That last telegram of the Kaiser must have done its soothing work. Youremember how it ran: the Kaiser was too busy to make up new phrases. He telegraphed to his sister the familiar Potsdam sentence: "Woe tothose who dare to draw the sword against me. " I am sure that I haveheard that before. And he added--delightful and significantpostscript!--"My compliments to Tino. " * * And Tino--King Constantine of the Hellenes--understood. He is in bednow with a very bad cold, and like to stay in bed until the weather bemore settled. But before going to bed he was able to tell a journalistthat Greece was going quietly on with her proper business; it was hermission to carry civilisation to the world. Truly that was the missionof ancient Greece. What we get from Tino's modern Greece is notcivilisation but the little black currants for plum-cake. * * But Rome. Greece may be dead or in the currant trade. Rome is aliveand immortal. Do not talk to me about Signor Giolitti, who is quitesure that the only things that matter in this new Italy, which is oldRome, are her commercial relations with Germany. Rome of the legions, our ancient mistress and conqueror, is alive to-day, and she cannot befor an ignoble peace. Here in my newspaper is the speech of a poetspoken in Rome to a shouting crowd: I will cut out the column and putit in the Poetry Book. * * He calls to the living and to the dead: "I saw the fire of Vesta, ORomans, lit yesterday in the great steel works of Liguria, Thefountain of Juturna, O Romans, I saw its water run to temper armour, to chill the drills that hollow out the bore of guns. " This is poetryof the old Roman sort. I imagine that scene in Rome: the latest poetof Rome calling upon the Romans in the name of Vesta's holy fire, inthe name of the springs at which the Great Twin Brethren washed theirhorses. I still believe in the power and the ancient charm of noblewords. I do not think that Giolitti and the stockbrokers will keep oldRome off the old roads where the legions went. Postscript While this volume was passing through the press, Mr. Ralph Shirley, the Editor of "The Occult Review" callled my attention to an articlethat is appearing in the August issue of his magazine, and was kindenough to let me see the advance proof sheets. The article is called "The Angelic Leaders" It is written by MissPhyllis Campbell. I have read it with great care. Miss Campbell says that she was in France when the war broke out. Shebecame a nurse, and while she was nursing the wounded she was informedthat an English soldier wanted a "holy picture. " She went to the manand found him to be a Lancashire Fusilier. He said that he was aWesleyan Methodist, and asked "for a picture or medal (he didn't carewhich) of St. George. .. Because he had seen him on a white horse, leading the British at Vitry-le-François, when the Allies turned" This statement was corroborated by a wounded R. F. A. Man who waspresent. He saw a tall man with yellow hair, in golden armour, on awhite horse, holding his sword up, and his mouth open as if he wassaying, "Come on, boys! I'll put the kybosh on the devils" This figurewas bareheaded--as appeared later from the testimony of othersoldiers--and the R. F. A. Man and the Fusilier knew that he was St. George, because he was exactly like the figure of St. George on thesovereigns. "Hadn't they seen him with his sword on every 'quid'they'd ever had?" From further evidence it seemed that while the English had seen theapparition of St. George coming out of a "yellow mist" or "cloud oflight, " to the French had been vouchsafed visions of St. Michael theArchangel and Joan of Arc. Miss Campbell says:-- "Everybody has seen them who has fought through from Mons to Ypres; they all agree on them individually, and have no doubt at all as to the final issue of their interference" Such are the main points of the article as it concerns the greatlegend of "The Angels of Mons. " I cannot say that the author hasshaken my incredulity--firstly, because the evidence is second-hand. Miss Campbell is perhaps acquainted with "Pickwick" and I would remindher of that famous (and golden) ruling of Stareleigh, J. : to theeffect that you mustn't tell us what the soldier said; it's notevidence. Miss Campbell has offended against this rule, and she hasnot only told us what the soldier said, but she has omitted to give usthe soldier's name and address. If Miss Campbell proffered herself as a witness at the Old Bailey andsaid, "John Doe is undoubtedly guilty. A soldier I met told me that hehad seen the prisoner put his hand into an old gentleman's pocket andtake out a purse"--well, she would find that the stout spirit of Mr. Justice Stareleigh still survives in our judges. The soldier must be produced. Before that is done we are nottechnically aware that he exists at all. Then there are one or two points in the article itself which puzzleme. The Fusilier and the R. F. A. Man had seen "St, George leading theBritish at Vitry-le-François, when the Allies turned. " Thus the timeof the apparition and the place of the apparition were firmly fixed inthe two soldiers' minds. Yet the very next paragraph in the article begins:-- "'Where was this ?' I asked. But neither of them could tell" This is an odd circumstance. They knew, and yet they did not know; or, rather, they had forgotten a piece of information that they hadthemselves imparted a few seconds before. Another point. The soldiers knew that the figure on the horse was St. George by his exact likeness to the figure of the saint on the Englishsovereign. This, again, is odd. The apparition was of a bareheaded figure ingolden armour. The St. George of the coinage is naked, except for ashort cape flying from the shoulders, and a helmet. He is notbareheaded, and has no armour--save the piece on his head. I do notquite see how the soldiers were so certain as to the identity of theapparition. Lastly, Miss Campbell declares that "everybody" who fought from Monsto Ypres saw the apparitions. If that be so, it is again odd thatNobody has come forward to testify at first hand to the most amazingevent of his life. Many men have been back on leave from the front, wehave many wounded in hospital, many soldiers have written lettershome. And they have all combined, this great host, to keep silence asto the most wonderful of occurrences, the most inspiring assurance, the surest omen of victory. It may be so, but-- Arthur Machen.