The White Comrade, and Other Poems

Then we look back unto that strange new hour When time was suddenly transformed for us Within a sleepy town near old Quebec. We, sunburned, and already turning home From a long forest tramp of two good weeks, We who were friends together, town and school And lives in common, knitting us akin. We had been tramping through the distant hills Far out of reach of papers and of news And when we stopped for letters, it was there We met the first surprising note of war: A little bill-board like a clarion voice Shouted to us on that midsummer day, "Germany says!" And on and on and on The fateful message ran. We turned and stared Into each other's eyes in blank amaze. "Germany says!" In two short weeks of time Hidden by forests as we three had been Could all the world be humbled so that news Of Germany, and what she says or does Or does not say or do, could raise the storm Whose thunders shook us even from afar. "Belgium is entered!" "England is prepared!" "Canada mobilizing!" Oh, ye gods, What things to read upon a little board Tacked up above the place where letters lie!

Later, we asked for ours, and they were full Of a new wonder and a great surprise. My little sister wrote, "I never dreamed That things could happen in this prosy town; But everyone is stirring and awake. Red Cross is starting, and each girl I know Has sent for wool. For we must learn to knit." Then Edward broke his printed envelope: "Insurance premiums for the risk in war." The air went chill as at a sudden blast. Nigel put his away. Nor opened it. His letters must be read quite out of sight. To-day I think he did not want to read. To-morrow he would see her. And the word Upon all lips would come into their eyes. We talked with village gossips all day long, We heard their suppositions, hopes and fears, We tried to puzzle out those buried weeks, When, out of sight and sound, such things had come Upon the world we knew, that it no more Was our same world. And we, in forest ways Had been quite lost while it was changing. Strange Past anything that we had dreamed before!

We climbed the hill behind the little town And as we sat the gathering darkness fell, The lights sprang up within the window panes And some young boy had found a penny flute Which through the gloaming sounded thin and clear Like an emphatic fairy note, that called To all the spirits that could hear its voice To come and follow, follow where it led. All here and there that shrill young flute cried "Come." And sometimes laughter followed in its train. We knew that children catching the refrain Would follow, follow on all luring led By that young voice through lands of summer night.

In the first bird note of St. Julien I heard that flute again from hills of home, When we three sat on that strange August night And tried to talk and felt our own words fail, But stared through violet shadows and knew then That worlds might fall away and new ones dawn, But never in this world more vital hours Could come for Canada, or for ourselves Than these midsummer days when all the land Must ask a vital question--and reply.

Then we became new soldiers in a cause That is as old as Christ, the crucified. As we took drill out in the open air, Drank the long draughts of ozone keen and bright, Felt our whole bodies grow as if new-born, Our minds kept pace and fed on wider thoughts. Each man I think who was in truth a man, Felt the old life slip from him in those days And a new purpose take the place of self.

And so we left Valcartier, and stole out Across the ocean--that long line of ships, "The New Armada," trailing slowly out Across that bridge of water to the land Where life and death indeed had met as one. Where life and death so closely were entwined You could not tell where one began or ceased. We did not talk of these things at the time But each man, as he smoked and shuffled cards, Or drilled his squad upon the sunny deck, Each man was conscious through that great good time That into life a nobler friend had come To be denied or loved as each one chose. A strong inevitable friend, so near That we should touch him in the passing soon: That young-old friend that life has long named Death.

At Salisbury we lived and moved in mud. Talked mud, felt mud, and slept in it knee-deep. England we felt not. Only lived the day, And fell at night to leaden dreams of home.

Then France, and sudden springtime bourgeoning. Oh, bourgeoning indeed with ardent hopes! I cannot tell you what that change was like: I wish that words were colours, or were notes, Then I would go past red to violet tones To give you back that vibrancy of air, That selfless, sacrificing, vital mood, That almost jocund feeling of rebound Towards the fight for liberty and right That animated France those first spring days. The year was young, and in the lovely land New life was waking ardent, eager-eyed. The very air called welcome, and we left Homesickness far behind. We summoned mirth And whistled down those roads all poplar lined. We laughed at mud that April winds would dry, And in that grey square Market Place at ... Where we marched past the staff and gave salute There was baptized a new affinity, Young Canada with France and England blent. I tell you hearts beat faster, hopes rode high, The air was lighter, keener, there was joy, Great joy in our swift entrance to the fight That closed about us fast those April days. I think that never in its hottest hour Was love so lovely or life so supreme As in the sudden days of leaf and bud, Of bird song, and that quickening of the heart That heralds Great Adventure to the soul. There was the night we marched on Neuve Chapelle: Thousands of shadows in a shadow host. Beyond lay German legions, and that zone Invisible, illusive, moving on That men have called "The Front." Fancy your heart Moving with other shadows all that night, Knowing yourself not flesh at all, but one-- One pulse-beat in the world's great heart of flame. Perhaps a whistling youth on days of sun, One among shadows on this night of nights, Moving with other shadows all night long. One leaving little loves far, far behind, One pressing on with thousands of his kind To answer that great question life had asked Each one upon his hilltop back at home.

We three marched near together through old France, Together trenched those days at Neuve Chapelle, And saw the heavens part and fires descend, And felt the roar of such a cannonade As all the world of battles had not known. The French lay close beside us, and near them The lithe, brown men from India--heroes they. We felt like children just discarding toys In face of those whose souls had long known war, Whose spirits flashed like rapiers in the face Of the Great Danger. They were men indeed Whom it was good to look upon and know, And in those nights they learned of us to say, When German flares lit up the evening skies, "Behold the Northern Lights!" St. Julien came, And that wild night in which old Edward fell. Those hours are hard to speak about at all. They went by like a flash in which we moved As one man altogether, and the hours Flared up to heaven like a burning torch.

Nigel and I, one night just after Ypres, Were struggling with our ancient college-French Talking, or stumbling into talk, with one Called René Paule, from an adjacent trench, Who had been wounded in an early fight. And he with eloquence and poetry Like all his vivid race, made haste to tell Of a strange rumor we had heard before, How in the depths of plain unvarnished hell Quivering with anguish so he could not move And waiting for the stretcher-bearers' call, He suddenly felt healing, cool and sweet, As you might feel a fan on a hot day Swayed by an unseen hand. And softly then Closing his eyes on blessed, stealing sleep He felt a touch, and looking up beheld The kindest, sweetest eyes in all the world. It was a Comrade in the khaki brown, His face was tired, but the eyes were keen And tender as a dewy flower at dawn. And René, feeling once again the pain, Grasped the hand tight, and looked into the eyes For succor, and they held him there, serene, And slowly, slowly conquered the strong pain. And René saw the khaki melt away Until the Comrade seemed all wrapt in white As though sheer light had woven a robe for him, And his strong eyes gleamed like an azure flame, And he held René through the bitter night, Until the stretcher-bearers came at dawn. "So the White Comrade often comes, my friends," He said to us, and smiling, mused awhile. "These fields are not so difficult in death; Whether we live or die it all seems one. He has come back to us because we die As He did, long ago, for love of man."

Often we talked of Edward, and he seemed To march beside us down the bright French roads. We moved into the firing line once more. So close the German lines, there only lay An orchard, in the loveliness of May, Between us and the armies of the Huns.

Sometimes I think that Festubert will hold Rank equal with St. Julien, for those Who lived through its abandonment of fire. It was the Gunners' day. We had to shell Those trenches that were fortresses indeed, And pouring hell's own native thunder out. The orchard lay between us, and it seemed We simply had to take that place by storm. They tried to ditch us with their hedge of wire; We plunged and made for gaps, and all the while They rained on us artillery fire, until Ear drums were stilled and nerves quite ceased to work; Machine gun, shrapnel, rifle-fire as one Kept up the deadly dance of death. And we Dashed at them, through that dance, till hand to hand We cleared our orchard, or they say we did. It was the Gunners' Day. I know that much. Some of the fun I missed, for at the height, Just when is lost completely every thought Of one's own entity, or reason why It is not, after all, good sport to die In such a whirlwind of emotion,--then, Out of a little puff of air it came, The one shot meant for me. I fell inert And sank into unconsciousness, till one Dragging me off made torture of my wound, Then left me under some small spreading shrubs. Surely one needed shelter from the sun And hottest air that ever poured on pain. I longed for water, looked for human aid, But no one came. Only the roar of guns And a far distant sound that meant the play Of men in action, that and drilling pain Met in a hideous duet of war. I called to Nigel with my aching mind And knew it was in vain. Again I called To youth, and to some Force in other worlds That might put me to death or ease my pain. A thousand swords were running through my brain, The blood thumped like an engine in my head. If I should faint the Comrade White might come!

Only in dreams, in dying dreams of pain He comes, I thought. Or else it is quite vain To trust such fairy tales as René told. Oh, for a glass of water! It was noon And o'er the grassy plain the sleepy hum Of insects, moving in a drowsy swoon, Sang to me through my pain, as if they were A near vibration of the guns of war.

"War, war, O hot and hideous and hard, The ways you lead, the deaths you make one die! I have died fifty times this noon!" So ran The anguished brain within me, on and on, All the long way of quivering mortal woe. The world was gone. I, swooning, felt it go, Was at the point of nothingness, when there, Moving across the grass on hands and knees, I saw a brown-clad figure crawling slow As if he were a part of the hot plain, And wondered if I'd last until he came.