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16
THE YPRES TIMES
Whatever opinion the British soldier held and maybe, expressed in his best descrip
tive vein, of the modern Thessalonian, he was as ever, ready to help in the time of trouble.
In Salonika as in every other part of the world, where the British soldier has gone about
his lawful occasions, he has been the best propagandist for his country. Be it remembered
that the truth is always the best propaganda, and the British soldier always shows him
self without guile or self-consciousness, as the world's champion peacemaker. When he
marched up the Vardar Valley and helped the Serbs to regain their country, he left
innumerable friends behind and made new ones wherever he rested for a while. After
Old Serbia had been successfully cleared of people who did not belong there, you would
find a little settlement of British soldiers chiefly Motor Transport, tucked away in quaint
little Serbian towns, some almost hidden from view, but for the indispensible white
washed stones that marked the roadway to it. Here British soldiers had settled as if for
life. All the dogs of the town were on the strength for rations, all the children were
known by their Christian names, and evèry notable had been fitted with a suitable
nickname. No wonder then that legend has already grown up round those places where
British soldiers did bide a while. One sudh legend, surely based on elemental truth as
legend generally is, tells of a British and a Serbian soldier meeting at a wayside wine
shop. Both being single-hearted men, purposeful and direct, they foregathered and
understood each other perfectly, though they both talked at the same time each in his
own language. Came the hour of parting and exchange of souvenirs to find the British
soldier without anything suitable to the occasion he had been visiting friends, collec
tors all, that afternoon. Then in a flash came the brilliant thought. Outside, hitched
to a post was the commissariate mule, a suitable present for a Serb. The happiest of
Serbs then vanished into the night precariously balanced on a mule.
At dawn next day the Serbs' return to mental alertness was hastened by the sight
of a fiddleheaded mule flopping its ears at him. There is only one course open to the
good soldier of any armywhen in doubt report to the Captain. The report went up and
up in the Serbian Army till it reached the Voivod, the Field-Marshal, when it was switched
over to the corresponding Emminence in the British Army of Occupation. From that
serene height came the answer straight a$d direct What the British soldier gives he
never takes back."
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r
Peace on earth the drums of war
Roll their defiance o'er the bells;
Goodwill towards men the murderous
l'hou knowest all; Thou readesi deep;
The heart of man is in Thine eyes;
It is a vigil grim we keep
Up from the trenches swells.
Only that Peace arise.
Is this the offering, this the day,
The triumph of the dripping sword
In lowliness the nations pray
Peace is not deadshe waits rebirth
Stirring within the womb of War;
And from its death shall tread the earth
Thy pitying mercy, I.ord.
More queenly than before.
V
Reprinted from Days of Destiny," by kind
permission of R. Gorell Rarnes.
