



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover]




                             THE HUMAN BOY
                              AND THE WAR


                                   BY



                                New York
                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                                  1916

                         _All rights reserved_




                             Copyright 1916
                        BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY


             Set up and electrotyped.  Published June, 1916
                        Reprinted October, 1916.




                                CONTENTS

The Battle of the Sand-Pit
The Mystery of Fortescue
The Countryman of Kant
Travers Minor, Scout
The Hutchings Testimonial
The Fight
Percy Minimus and His Tommy
The Prize Poem
The Revenge
The "Turbot's" Aunt
Cornwallis and Me and Fate
For the Red Cross
The Last of Mitchell




                             THE HUMAN BOY
                              AND THE WAR



                       THE BATTLE OF THE SAND-PIT


After the war had fairly got going, naturally we thought a good deal
about it, and it was explained to us by Fortescue that, behind the
theory of Germany licking us, or us licking Germany, as the case might
be, there were two great psychical ideas. As I was going to be a soldier
myself, the actual fighting interested me most, but the psychical ideas
were also interesting, because Fortescue said that often the cause won
the battle.  Therefore it was better to have a good psychical idea
behind you, like us, than a rotten one, like Germany.  I always thought
the best men and the best ships and the best brains and the most money
were simply bound to come out top in the long run; but Fortescue said
that a bad psychical idea behind these things often wrecks the whole
show.  And so I asked him if we had got a good psychical idea behind us,
and he said we had a champion one, whereas the Germans were trusting to
a perfectly deadly psychical idea, which was bound to have wrecked them
in any case--even if they'd had twenty million men instead of ten.

So that was all right, though, no doubt, the Germans think their idea of
being top dog of the whole world is really finer than ours, which is
"Live and let live."  And, as I pointed out to Fortescue, no doubt if we
had such a fearfully fine opinion of ourselves as the Germans have, then
we also should want to be top dog of the world.

And Fortescue said:--

"That's just it, Travers major.  Thanks to our sane policy of respecting
the rights of all men, and never setting ourselves up as the only nation
that counts, we do count--first and foremost; but if we'd gone out into
the whole earth and bawled that we were going to make it Anglo-Saxon,
then we should have been laughed at, as the Germans are now; and we
should dismally have failed as colonists, just as they have."

So, of course, I saw all he meant by his psychical idea, and no doubt it
was a jolly fine thought; and most, though not all, of the Sixth saw it
also.  But the Fifth saw it less, and the Fourth didn't see it at all.
The Fourth were, in fact, rather an earthy lot about this time, and they
seemed to have a foggy sort of notion that might is right; or, if it
isn't, it generally comes out right, which to the minds of the Fourth
amounted to the same thing.

The war naturally had a large effect upon us, and according as we looked
at the war, so you could judge of our opinions in general.  I and my
brother, Travers minor, and Briggs and Saunders--though Briggs and
Travers minor were themselves in the Lower Fourth--were interested in
the strategy and higher command.  We foretold what was going to happen
next, and were sometimes quite right; whereas chaps like Abbott and
Blades and Mitchell and Pegram and Rice were only interested in the
brutal part, and the bloodshed and the grim particulars about the
enemy's trenches after a sortie, and so on.

In time, curiously enough, there got to be two war parties in the
school.  Of course they both wanted England to win, but we took a higher
line about it, and looked on to the end, and argued about the division
of the spoil, and the general improvement of Europe, and the new map,
and the advancement of better ideas, and so on; while Rice and Pegram
and such-like took the "horrible slaughter" line, and rejoiced to hear
of parties surrounded, and