BRUCE BAIRNSFATHER

Evening Star, Issue 16910, 6 December 1918, Page 7

BRUCE BAIRNSFATHER

A NEW YORK SKETCH. Captain Bruce the noted artist, is at present visiting America, and is later booked for a tour of Au.itra.lia. Tho New York 'Evening Poet' gives a short sketch of the popular cartoonist as follows ;

Ho looked very comfortable in grey ■flannel mufti in his rooms at the Hotel j A.»tor, armed with cigarette*. Ths fact that various members of the little establishj ment which is to tour him through Ameri icn. and Australia kept knocking on the door and demanding liis presence at several telephones at once did not disturb him at all. He also has become detached, fatalistic. "I'll not talk to them," he says, casually, adding genially: ** Life is a jigsaw pazzla here." "Well, I started in when the war began, you see," he says. " I was in the first trench that was ever built, I think. In fact. I'm not sure I didn't help to build it. Ard T was in that trench for a considerable time—all through the terrible winter of 1914. Then we went to other trenches. And my drawing was founded simply on tho miserable surroundings. In front of us was a field, pitted with German shells like a Swiss cheese, and in the other direction were the German treiu-b.es, ICO yards away, Ifc was a terrible dugout. " ;

| " I was in charge of the machine puns. ; and after I'd done my job I'd como back , ana sit around m the dugout with the j rest. It was just a hole m the ground. ; w-ith an old door we had found for a roof. ilt was intolerable. And the effect on nw I a f tar I had passed a certain point was-, to ! laugh, you know—to smtio at the predicament. 'One day I was sitting there, full of depression, looking; into tht> future. Ju«t that/morning the Germans had set about us and put a lot of livo-poinr.-mncs into ua. And than I drew ' Where did that one go?'" Captain Bairnsfather hoc- nervous, longfingered hands, and as he tells about drawing he m.nkei sketchy lines in tho air with his cigarette. He leans over with his arm? on his knees, and darts quick glances up to sse if you're getting all the points. He has quick, bright eyes which surely haven't missed'a sincrlo quirk in all tho war from which a picture be made.

HUMBLE BEGINNING.

"I drew tho sketch on an old bit of paper in the dugout, and vara it to some soldier or other,"who put it up in tho dugout And a let of thorn looked at it, and somebody jvsked me, in that vague way mewls have, why I didn't send it up to bo published. But I didn't know where to send it.

" Then, later, I was at St. Ives, a little ! town which no longer exists. And they : had gotten evem-hintr then except the : place I was'livinj in. "Ail day it was im- ' perative to look as. if there was nobody :in ths house. I drew there all one day, to the accompaniment of machine guns smacking up against the wall. And then I did send some* of them up to London, for it happened that ray mother had put some papers into a nackace she sent out to mo, to keep it stiff. And so I got the address of the London ' Bystander,'" and sent them off. Then some, man and officers began to ! send to me for pictures, and I would make them iust for their amusement and my i J oTrn- ' "Tho next stens was in front of Mes- ! sin~s. The first night out I had no dug- ] out, and a colonol who lived in a farm a ! mile behind the lines asked me to consup and stay with him and tbe wall*. The walls were there, right enough, but there was nothing to decorate them ivrt-li, j So I put- my arm up tbo chimney and I got down some soot. This I mured with rifle oil. and charred a stick for charcoal, and £0 I got uhmg. I put 'They've evi- | denLly seen roe' and 'My dream for years to come ' on his walls. "In the week after that, one terrible | night of r : :!'p : ng and machine guns and ! shells, I came back in tha pouring rain to j the dugout, and found the cnrpcrul sorting j letters by the light of a candle-end stuck in a bottle. And there was one for mo ! from tho London ' Bystander.' saying: I ' The e-iitor will bo nlossed to accept,' eto. : That was the first oi my publishing." j " STOPPED ONE." It was in the first gas attack in 1915 that Captain Bairnsiather " stopped a shell," and went home to Blighty to a hospital for a while. But he got back for the battle of tho Seinme, and htter he went, at the order of tho War Offico, to fight on all the different fronts, to get material for mora drawings. He was with the French at Verdun, with the Italians in tho Alps, with the Americans in Alsace-L-orraino, on the North Sea, "the extreme terminus of the line, where the barbed wire runs out into the sea, and occasionally a German swam around to give himself up." ■ For six months he ha,? been with the .Americans. "The English and Americans are very much alike," bf. says. "Hers they are different. ' hut they are! not so different when thoy get there, j Over there they are much the same. It's \ tho war—a touch of shelling makes the whole world kin. They have the same cheer, determination, and vigor. Thay do the war in the same way. Their whole outlook and style are tho same. And one night, when 1 was with them in a barn, a -thell went off, and I heard several voices sav"—he paused dramatically and held tho cigarette poised—" ' Where, did that one go?' "