The previous year, 1916, had been a hard one. Our struggles in the War, the Sinn Fein rebellion in Dublin, and one dreadful day in that year when the first report of the Battle of Jutland was published – these were great trials. I certainly would not like to go through another phase like that. But I was hard at work in the studio at home in Tipperary, and this kept my mind in a healthy condition, as always, through trouble. Let all who have congenial work to do bless their stars!
On July 31st my second son, the chaplain, had a narrow escape. It was at the great Battle of Flanders, where we seem to have made a good beginning at last. Father Knapp and Dick were tending the wounded and dying under a rain of shells, when the old priest told Dick to go and get a few minutes’ rest. On returning to his sorrowful work Dick met the fine old Carmelite as he was borne on a stretcher, dying of a shell that had exploded just where my son had been standing a few minutes before.
I see in the Diary: “December 11th, 1917. – To-day our army is to make its formal entry into Jerusalem. I can scarcely write for excitement. How vividly I see it all, knowing every yard of that holy ground! Dick writes from before Cambrai that, if he had to go through another such day as that of the 30th November last, he would go mad with grief. He lost all his dearest friends in the Grenadier Guards, and he says England little knows how near she was to a great disaster when the enemy surprised us on that terrible Friday.”
Men who have gone through the horrors of war say little about them, but I have learnt many strange things from rare remarks here and there. To show how human life becomes of no account as the fighting grows, here is an instance. A soldier was executed at dawn one day for “cowardice.” An officer who had acted at the court-martial met a private of the same regiment as the dead man’s that day, who remarked to his officer that all he could say about his dead “pal” was that he had seen him perform an act of bravery three times which would have deserved the V.C. “My good man,” said the officer, “why didn’t you come forward at the trial and say this?” “Well, I didn’t think of it, sir.” After all, to die one way or another had become quite immaterial.
One of the most important of my water colours at the second khaki exhibition, held in London in May, 1919, was of the memorable charge of the Warwick and Worcester Yeomanry at Huj, near Jerusalem, which charge outshone the old Balaclava one we love to remember, and which differed from the Crimean exploit in that we not only captured all the enemy guns, but held them. I had had all details – ground plans, description of the weather on that memorable day, position of the sun, etc., etc. – supplied me by an eye-witness who had a singularly quick eye and precise perception.20 I called it “Jerusalem delivered,” for that charge opened the gates of the Holy City to us. “The Canadian Bombers on Vimy Ridge” was another of the more conspicuous subjects, and this one went to Canada.
But I must look back a little: “Monday, November 11th, 1918. – Armistice Day! I have been fortunate in seeing London on this day of days. I arrived at Victoria into a London of laughter, flags, joy-rides on every conceivable and inconceivable vehicle. I had hints on the way to London by eruptions of Union Jacks growing thicker and thicker along the railway, but I could not let myself believe that it was the end of all our long-drawn-out trial that I would find on arrival. But so it was. I went alone for a good stroll through Oxford Street, Bond Street, and Piccadilly. People meeting, though strangers, were smiling at each other. I smiled to strange faces that were smiling at me. What a novel sensation! The streets were thronged with the true happiness in the people’s eyes, and there was no “mafficking” no horse-play, but such fun. The matter was too great for rowdyism and drunkenness. The crowd was allowed to do just as it pleased for once, yet I saw no accidents. The police just looked on, and would have beamed also, I am sure, if they had not been on duty. They had, apparently, thrown the reins on the public’s neck. I saw some sad faces, but, of course, such as these kept mostly away.”
In deepest gratitude I felt I could be amongst the smilers that day, for both my own sons, who faced death to the very end in so many of the theatres of war to which our armies were sent, had survived.
The boat that took me back to Ireland eventually had no protecting airship serpentining above us. We could breathe freely now!