FIGHTING MAN IN FICTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15900, 24 April 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

FIGHTING MAN IN FICTION.

nr a. d. Bwont.

Therk is something in the clamour and colouring of war that makes it fascinating to the least warlike among us. So it is not surprising that soldiers whim they write should deck their heroes with epaulettes, people their pages with garrison folk and more their plots to the inarch of the regiment. For everything about war is effective— marching of armies and the clash of arms, tho rolling of artillery and the echoes of trumpet and drum. Even defeat, if it is not a rout, may be imposing, and death is never so nobly palled, so simply and with so much state withal as at a military funeral.

Soldiers and sailors love to create again the atmosphere with which they are familiar, and women writers, if they are the daughters or wives of soldiers, never tire of the sound of the drum. But the best known soldiers of fiction are the creations of nvn of peace. So Sterno gives us Captain Shandy and Corporal Trim who, before tho Kaiser, mapped out the battlefield of Europe as they had fought on it. Then Stevenson has the French fighting man at his best in St. Ives—a. remarkably fine best that Frenchman of a hundred years ago. There is a nonchalant gallantry about him that we do not know in British bookwarriors, although Sir Nigel in the White Company has been endowed with it. We have long known Henry of Navarre in fiction, and those soldiers of fortune, the Musketeers, and not least among a, debonair company is Cyrano do Bergerae the Modern— second Bayard. In English books no foreigner surpasses Denys of Burgundy, an irresistibly charming free lance who lives in one of the noblest classics of any language. Scott's splendid company of Crusaders are of many nations, and Shakespere's legions are cosmopolitan, too, and unique. Tolstoy gives us Russian soldiers. He paints from life, but possibly does them scant justice, and his own campaigns are given in sombre tones. His fictional Cossacks are not so simple nor nearly so attractive as those Maurice Baring bivouacked with and sketches in his papei'9 on the Russo-Japanese war.

Of German fighting men there are the overbearing officers of a hundred plays and our old acquaintances, Schiller's creations. They are outlined correctly it would seem; and -which I dislike most is always a puzzle to me. Carlyle's presentment of Frederick the Great borders on the fictional, but he is an interesting —and strong.

In America, where memories of wartime are the voice of yesterday, delightful book-soldiers abound. Australian writers, as yet, are interested in the art of fighting, chiefly when'it is practiced by policemen and outlaws, but these next three years will probably change both villain and hero.

Very real, very strong, and very British are the men of the, rank and file that Rudyard Kipling sends out under some fine Indian officers. But of all British novelists it lias fallen to Mr. Thackeray to draw the greatest number of soldiers who will live. Thov might man a garrisou! The two Wamrigtons, Generals Wolfe and " Lamjbert, Captain Harry Esmond,. Lord Highgate, with the men of his mess whose portraits Clive Newcome painted, Francis my Lord Castlewood, General Tufto, Major Pendennis, Captain Osborne, Colonels Crawley, Newcome, and Dobbin, Major-Genera O'Dowd, and the gaming-table contingent. Thackeray sets up soldiers, not because he is enamoured of warfare, but because he loves the breed fighting men are made of. i So little is he addicted to war for war's sake, that his men fight on either side indiscriminately. I have tried to determine whether any of his civilians, except the last Ge»rgo Warrington, Pen's friend, can rival theso men-at-arms, and I am inclined to think not. His bankers, doctors, artists, writing men, are humdrum folk whe»i set beside tho noble fighting stock—Colonels Dobbin and Newcome, young Barry Warrington of Virginia, mid his. grandfather, the colonel of .Marlborough's wars, Viscount Esmond, as he lived in his daughter's memory. It is not surprising, for see how convincing is war; not only in modern hands but far back, in history. Where would be the triumph of Homer if Greek captains had n|3t gone out against Troy? It is not tho Kaiser alone who must levy armies to make himself a figure in the world; the minstrel who sings of battles cannot so -chant the themes of peace. The soldier psalmist sang of war, and in the books of Kings and Judges Leviticus and Numbers what figure save only Moses— without an army was cne of the greatest generals the world has seen— compare with that warrior King and his captains of tho host? Why should* this be? Why should Mr. Thackeray send all but one of his greatest figures to the wars? It is not that we are to infer that none but heroes ever enlist. George Osborne was a soldier, and ho was of poorest clay. With his forbears, the limitations of his upbringing and his own conceit and weakness, it is' appalling to think what he might have become if he had been a prosperous draper or a pushing bank clerk. This is no reflection on these necesisary callings— not. But as we watch this commonplace young, man patronising Dobbin, toadying to the dragoon, neglecting his sensitive little bride and cutting I an even worae figure at the ball, it is amazing to find him in those last hours ot his life so humble and tender, so manly and contrite. On all that battlefield strewn with heroes there is none among them finer nor more to our liking than Amelia's soldier husband dead, who but a few short- hours before had been a gambler, a toady, a would-be libertine, and quite a fool. Captain Rawdon Crawley, too, a young blood, dandy in a crack regiment, sets out on his last campaign in his oldest uniform bearing his second best accoutrements. And his thoughts as ho scrapes up provision for Becky, his wife, might bo those of a boy for his first love. So hf" rides out, one of the staff of the battered old general of the Regency, patterned on regency lines. And Rawdon Crawley and George Osborne were only two of thousands who rode out that day with nono but their better selves to harass them, in their hearts only simplicity and gentle, memories; and in their soldier's courage true faith and manly piety. For the soidier more than other men is called upon for the best that is ill him. It is a demand made seldom in the routine of peaceful pursuits. An accident, perhaps a shipwreck, and the mere trifler is revealed of hero mould ! But these accidents are rare. If George Osborne had been a draper he would never have known himself as in the night before action. Discipline counts and the insignificance of the unit tells, but it is that" always-to-be-awaited summons to line up for* the last time, that may come in a sudden drum beat, that is the soldier's refining fire. ,So we have fighters in fiction from the davs of the Iliad. The soldier's opportunity is the making of heroes, and heroes must be the theme of the masters till wars shall cease. When that time comes literature will suffer— comfort this for mothers with sons at the front! Yet think! you who watch and wait for those dear to you, that in giving, you give your sons twice over—to die if need be for their country and to live as types, :l .s do Homer's heroes, masterpieces in the tuture art of the worlds