heard it once again that day they would break it over my own head.
It is cowardly going up and down, playing a drum of this sort, when
there is nobody to stop you. The man would not dare to do it if his
mother was about. He does not even play it. He walks along tapping
it with a little stick. There's no tune, there's no sense in it. He
does not even keep time. I used to think at first, hearing it in the
distance, that it was the work of some young gamin who ought to be at
school, or making himself useful taking the baby out in the
perambulator: and I would draw back into dark doorways, determined,
as he came by, to dart out and pull his ear for him. To my
astonishment--for the first week--I learnt it was the Belgian Army,
getting itself accustomed, one supposes, to the horrors of war. It
had the effect of making me a peace-at-any-price man.

They tell me these armies are necessary to preserve the tranquility
of Europe. For myself, I should be willing to run the risk of an
occasional row. Cannot someone tell them they are out of date, with
their bits of feathers and their odds and ends of ironmongery--grown
men that cannot be sent out for a walk unless accompanied by a couple
of nursemen, blowing a tin whistle and tapping a drum out of a toy
shop to keep them in order and prevent their running about: one
might think they were chickens. A herd of soldiers with their pots
and pans and parcels, and all their deadly things tied on to them,
prancing about in time to a tune, makes me think always of the White
Knight that Alice met in Wonderland. I take it that for practical
purposes--to fight for your country, or to fight for somebody else's
country, which is, generally speaking, more popular--the thing
essential is that a certain proportion of the populace should be able
to shoot straight with a gun. How standing in a line and turning out
your toes is going to assist you, under modern conditions of warfare,