"Bless 'im! Ain't 'e a little patriarch?"
I am a little puzzled as to the authorship of Action Front (Smith, Elder), which is stated to be written by Boyd Cable, author of Between the Lines. First of all there was a Mr. Boyd Cable, but he didn't last, for he soon turned into "Boyd Cable" without the Mr., the inverted commas indicating, I suppose, that this was a mere nom de guerre. At or about the same time there was an author known as "Action Front," whose writings were hardly to be distinguished from those of "Boyd Cable." And now Action Front becomes the title of a book by Boyd Cable. For my own part I can only say that, whoever he may be, Boyd Cable—let us try him without the inverts—has a most remarkable gift for the writing of vivid and exciting war-stories. He takes a phrase from the communiqués and shows you with a seemingly careless art, of which he holds the secret, what moving incidents, what heroism, what self-sacrifice and glorious endurance are concealed behind the bald official announcement. Moreover, he has a true appreciation of the reckless and humorous courage that characterises the British fighting man, the splendid human material out of which great events are fashioned. If you add to these high qualities a talent for making you visualise the scenes and the sequence of incidents which he describes you will obtain some conception of the methods of this most interesting writer. He holds you in his grip from the moment he starts, and there is no relaxation from then to the finish. Each little story is an admirable piece of literary architecture. If I had to class them I should place "Drill" and "The Signallers" by themselves in the first division of the first class. I will hint only one fault: it is too great a tax on one's credulity to be asked to believe that a French officer could have addressed an English private as mon beau Anglaise. Otherwise I have nothing but praise for Action Front, though I am still as far as ever from knowing who wrote it.
I feel I am beginning to know something of romantic Russia and the Russians from the perpetual and jolly spate of Mr. Stephen Graham's books. Through Russian Central Asia (Cassell) is the very latest to hand. I like his easy pace, his gentle universal friendliness, his fearlessness, his untidy but interesting mind. He is a tramp of tramps. With a thin wallet of notes and no weapon but a fountain-pen he travels a couple of thousand miles or so and back, faring on his own feet, steaming down stretches of navigable river, taking the rail for a space, begging a lift in some prehistoric conveyance, right from the Caspian, by magical many-hued Bokhara and storied Samarkand that holds the bones of Tamerlane, on through the flower-starred highlands of the Seven Rivers Land to the Irtish river and Siberian plains, sleeping under the stars or in a Khirgiz tent of felt, or a riverside cave—surely a happy careless man. And he has made an interesting book of it, intelligently packed with admirable photographs. He still keeps to his fine theme, the interpretation of Russia and the plea for friendliness, trust and a large co-operation with her on our part over the problems of peace and power. Among such problems he drifts about with a disarming naïvetè, a little out of depth and more than a little sagacious. An excellent specimen of the converted "Radical-Imperialist."
There used, I believe, to be an old controversy as to how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. Somehow, this antique problem is always brought to my mind by the short stories of Mr. Barry Pain, perhaps because he seems to have the power of marshalling more angels of pity and fear and laughter in the restricted area of a few printed pages than almost any other writer. How true this is you have now a fine opportunity of judging, since the first volume of his Collected Tales (Secker) contains a baker's dozen of samples selected by himself. Of these the most considerable (in point of length) is "Wilmay," which might almost be considered a very short novel. It is also to my mind the weakest thing in the volume; not even Mr. Barry Pain can impart much freshness to the middle-aged guardian who remains, till the final chapter, blind to the obvious devotion of his attractive ward. Elsewhere, by way of compensation, we have several little studies of rare quality: "Ellen Rider," exquisite in its restraint and genuine feeling; "The Undying Thing," that small masterpiece of the unpleasant, and "The Night of Glory," a savage and utterly merciless piece of anti-sentimentalism with a moral. Mr. Pain says in his preface that he has not included any example of his humorous work. Perhaps he was looking the other way when "Sparkling Burgundy" added itself to the collection. Anyhow, I am glad it eluded him, as it is one of the happiest things in a most attractive volume.
Miss Marguerite Bryant, the author of Felicity Crofton (Heinemann), can thank the gods for two gifts which lift any novel of hers well above the ruck of fiction. One is a sense of style (let me beg her not to play careless pranks with it); the other such a knowledge of men as is vouchsafed to very few contemporary women-novelists. You will have to go far and get very tired before you find a more lovable heroine than Felicity. Even after you have begun to suspect that the bearing of her own and other people's burdens had grown to be a hobby with her, you never lose faith in her delightfully vivid and radiant personality. The danger of drawing so fascinating a character is that when she is off the stage one's attention is apt to wander to the wings; but Miss Bryant, though she cannot quite defeat this peril, has hot been overwhelmed by it. With one exception the minor parts in her story are excellently handled, and in the end I have to be grateful for more refreshment than I have gleaned for many a day.
Wherever he has wandered of late, Mr. Punch has been struck by the sight of a new and capable type of citizen, always in some responsible position and always alert and efficient.
He has found her, in various incarnations, everywhere. If he goes by the railway she sells him his ticket. When he passes through the gate she clips his ticket. When he leaves the station she collects his ticket.
When he goes by Tube she takes him down in the lift and up in it again. If he boards a tram or an omnibus it is she, this new citizen, in a trim businesslike uniform, who collects his fare.
At his club she brings him his lunch. At many a restaurant she handles plates once sacred to Fritz and Karl.
He has seen her collecting letters from the pillar-boxes and manfully shouldering the sack.
When he shops she opens his cab door and receives him, and if it is wet she holds an umbrella over him.
In countless Banks and Offices she does the work of clerks, released for the army.
Often he sees her driving a motor-car; often a waggon; often a motor-tricycle delivering goods. In smart leggings, tunic and cap she runs errands.
On flag-days (and they occur now and then) she collects money in the streets hour after hour, no matter how cold or tired she is. At charity matinées (and they, too, have been known to happen) she extracts vast sums of money from the audience for programmes and souvenirs. She sits on a thousand committees connected with War charities and alleviations.
At the canteens, which never shut, day or night, she serves soldiers with hot drinks, cheerfully welcoming them back to old England, or speeding them with equal cheer on their way to the War. Dressed in khaki, she meets soldiers home on leave, leading them to comfortable shelters. Never does she look so masterful as then, for she marches at their head like a real commander.
In Regent's Park you may see her guiding blind soldiers, and on Hampstead Heath Mr. Punch has found her pulling or pushing crippled soldiers in bath-chairs. Elsewhere she reads to them and writes their letters for them, thus helping to beguile the long inactive hours.
In the hospital depôts she makes swabs and bandages by the million, quilts pneumonia jackets, pads the tops of crutches and sandpapers splints.
She has hardened her soft hands, through all weathers and seasons, in the labour of farm and field; grooming horses, tending cattle, guiding the plough, gathering the harvest.
And all over the country she is continually busy making munitions.
As for the myriad nurses in the hospitals here and abroad, who guard the precarious flame of life and dress wounds and cheer the sick—they do nothing new. That has always, been woman's mission. But of course there are countless more nurses than there were two years ago, before the cataclysm.
Wherever he sees one of the new citizens, or whenever he hears fresh stories of their address and ability, Mr. Punch is proud and delighted. "It's almost worth having a war," he will say, "to prove what stuff our women are made of." But, always the most chivalrous of men, "Not that it wanted proof," he will add.
And then, the other day, finding several representatives of the new citizenship resting in their luncheon hour, Mr. Punch, taking all his courage into his venerable hands, ventured to chat a little with them (for of course he would not dare to interrupt them when they were at work), in order to find out how they would be now filling their time were there none of these novel and pressing War duties.
But the remarkable thing is that none of them quite knew. They could not remember. All they were certain of amid the haze was the very distinct conviction that, whatever it was, they would not then have been so happy as they now were.
"Well, my dears," said Mr. Punch, laughing, "never mind about what you might have been doing. The important thing is what you are doing, and when I think of that it makes my eyes glisten, I am so proud of you. Perhaps now and then in the past I may have been a little chaffing about some of your foibles, and even about some of your aspirations; but I never doubted how splendid you were at heart; I never for a moment supposed you would be anything but ready and keen when the hour of need struck. And I was right, bless your spirited hearts! I was right. For here you are, filling the men's places, so that they can be the more free to go and fight for us, and doing it all smilingly and cleverly as though you'd never done anything else. I think it's magnificent. I'm an old man and I've seen a great many things in my time, but I've never seen anything better or anything that gave me more pleasure."
"Oh, no, Mr. Punch," said one of the new citizens—rather a pretty one, too—"you're not really old."
"No! no!" cried the others. "You're very kind and sweet," said Mr. Punch, "but you're wrong. I am old, very old—in fact just three quarters of a century old; and in proof of that let me hand you my
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