My Early Life: The Autobiography. Winston Churchill

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СКАЧАТЬ that came along. But when responsible, his contribution to public affairs was faithful and original. He never sat down to play a cold, calculated game. He said what he thought. It was better so.

      Mr. Gladstone's reputation as an orator depends less upon his published speeches than upon the effect they produced at the time upon the audience. Lord Randolph Churchill's place in our political history is measured not by his words and actions, but by the impression which his personality made upon his contemporaries. This was intense, and had circumstances continued favourable, might well have manifested itself in decisive episodes. He embodied that force, caprice and charm which so often springs from genius.

      Now that I have been reading over all the letters which he wrote to me laboriously with his own hand after the fashion of those days, I feel that I did not at the time appreciate how much he thought and cared for me. More than ever do I regret that we did not live long enough in company to know each other. I used to go to see Lord Rosebery in the later years of his life because, apart from the respect I bore this distinguished man, I loved to hear him talk about my father. I had a feeling of getting nearer to my father when I talked with his intimate and illustrious friend. The last time I saw Lord Rosebery I said how much I should have liked to roll back the years, and talk about things with my father on even terms. The aged statesman said in a wonderful way: 'Ah! he'd have understood'.

      *****

      I was making a road map on Chobham Common in June 1894, when a cyclist messenger brought me the college adjutant's order to proceed at once to London. My father was setting out the next day on a journey round the world. An ordinary application to the college authorities for my being granted special leave of absence had been refused as a matter of routine. He had telegraphed to the Secretary of State for War, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 'My last day in England' ... and no time had been lost in setting me on my way to London.

      We drove to the station the next morning—my mother, my younger brother and I. In spite of the great beard which he had grown during his South African journey four years before, his face looked terribly haggard and worn with mental pain. He patted me on the knee in a gesture which however simple was perfectly informing.

      There followed his long journey round the world. I never saw him again, except as a swiftly-fading shadow.

      *****

      I learned several things at Sandhurst which showed me how to behave and how officers of different ranks were expected to treat one another in the life and discipline of a regiment. My company commander, Major Ball, of the Welsh regiment, was a very strict and peppery martinet. Formal, reserved, frigidly courteous, punctilious, impeccable, severe, he was held in the greatest awe. It had never been his fortune to go on active service, but we were none the less sure that he would have had to be killed to be beaten.

      The rule was, that if you went outside the college bounds, you first of all wrote your name in the company leave-book, and might then assume that your request was sanctioned. One day I drove a tandem (hired) over to Aldershot to see a friend in a militia battalion then training there. As I drove down the Marlborough lines, whom should I meet but Major Ball himself driving a spanking dog-cart home to Sandhurst. As I took off my hat to him, I remembered with a flash of anxiety that I had been too lazy or careless to write my name in the leave-book. However, I thought, 'there is still a chance. He may not look at it until Mess; and I will write my name down as soon as I get back.' I curtailed my visit to the militia battalion and hastened back to the college as fast as the ponies could trot. It was six o'clock when I got in. I ran along the passage to the desk where the leave-book lay, and the first thing that caught my eyes were the Major's initials, 'O.B.' at the foot of the leaves granted for the day. I was too late. He had seen me in Aldershot and had seen that my name was not in the book. Then I looked again, and there to my astonishment was my own name written in the Major's hand-writing and duly approved by his initials.

      This opened my eyes to the kind of life which existed in the old British army and how the very strictest discipline could be maintained among officers without the slightest departure from the standards of a courteous and easy society. Naturally after such a rebuke I never was so neglectful again.

      Very much the same thing happened one day in the winter of 1915 when I was serving with the Grenadier Guards in front of Laventie. Our Colonel, then the well-known 'Ma' Jeffreys, a super-martinet, and a splendid officer utterly unaffected by sixteen months of the brunt, deprecated the use of alcohol (apart from the regular rum ration) on duty, even under the shocking winter weather and in the front line. It was his wish, though not his actual order, that it should not be taken into the trenches. In a dark and dripping dug-out a bottle of port was being consumed, when the cry 'Commanding officer,' was heard and Colonel Jeffreys began to descend the steps. A young officer in whom there evidently lay the germs of military genius instinctively stuck the guttering candle which lighted the dug-out into the mouth of the bottle. Such candlesticks were common. Everything passed off perfectly. However, six months later this young officer found himself on leave in the Guards' Club, and there met Colonel Jeffreys. 'Have a glass of port wine?' said the Colonel. The subaltern accepted. The bottle was brought and the glasses emptied: 'Does it taste of candle grease?' said the Colonel; and they both laughed together.

      *****

      In my last term at Sandhurst—if the reader will permit a digression—my indignation was excited by the Purity Campaign of Mrs. Ormiston Chant. This lady was a member of the London County Council and in the summer of 1894 she started an active movement to purge our music-halls. Her attention was particularly directed to the promenade of the Empire Theatre. This large space behind the dress circle was frequently crowded during the evening performances, and especially on Saturdays, with young people of both sexes, who not only conversed together during the performance and its intervals, but also from time to time refreshed themselves with alcoholic liquors. Mrs. Ormiston Chant and her friends made a number of allegations affecting both the sobriety and the morals of these merrymakers; and she endeavoured to procure the closing of the Promenade and above all of the bars which abutted on it. It seemed that the majority of the English public viewed these matters in a different light. Their cause was championed by the Daily Telegraph, in those days our leading popular newspaper. In a series of powerful articles headed 'Prudes on the Prowl' the Daily Telegraph inaugurated a wide and spirited correspondence to which persons were wont to contribute above such pseudonyms as 'Mother of Five,' 'Gentleman and Christian,' 'Live and Let Live,' 'John Bull' and so forth. The controversy aroused keen public interest; but nowhere was it more searchingly debated than among my Sandhurst friends. We were accustomed to visit this very promenade in the brief leave allowed to us twice a month from Saturday noon till Sunday midnight. We were scandalised by Mrs. Chant's charges and insinuations. We had never seen anything to complain of in the behaviour of either sex. Indeed the only point upon which criticism, as it seemed to us, might justly be directed was the strict and even rough manner in which the enormous uniformed commissionaires immediately removed, and even thrust forcibly into the street, anyone who had inadvertently overstepped the bounds of true temperance. We thought Mrs. Ormiston Chant's movement entirely uncalled for and contrary to the best traditions of British freedom.

      In this cause I was keenly anxious to strike a blow. I noticed one day in the Daily Telegraph that a gentleman—whose name escapes me—proposed to found a League of Citizens to resist and counter the intolerance of Mrs. Chant and her backers. This was to be called 'The Entertainments Protection League.' The League proposed to form committees and an executive, to take offices and enrol members, to collect subscriptions, to hold public meetings, and to issue literature in support of its views. I immediately volunteered my services. I wrote to the pious Founder at the address which he had given, expressing my cordial agreement with his aims and my readiness to co-operate in every lawful way. In due course I received an answer on impressively-headed notepaper informing me that my support was welcomed, and inviting my attendance at the first meeting of the Executive Committee, which was to be held on the following Wednesday at 6 o'clock in a London hotel.

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