E-text prepared by Tom Harris
The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War
by
1915
Introduction
I have been asked to write an introduction to the story of "TheBowmen", on its publication in book form together with three othertales of similar fashion. And I hesitate. This affair of "The Bowmen"has been such an odd one from first to last, so many queercomplications have entered into it, there have been so many and sodivers currents and cross-currents of rumour and speculationconcerning it, that I honestly do not know where to begin. I propose,then, to solve the difficulty by apologising for beginning at all.
For, usually and fitly, the presence of an introduction is held toimply that there is something of consequence and importance to beintroduced. If, for example, a man has made an anthology of greatpoetry, he may well write an introduction justifying his principle ofselection, pointing out here and there, as the spirit moves him, highbeauties and supreme excellencies, discoursing of the magnates andlords and princes of literature, whom he is merely serving as groom ofthe chamber. Introductions, that is, belong to the masterpieces andclassics of the world, to the great and ancient and accepted things;and I am here introducing a short, small story of my own whichappeared in The Evening News about ten months ago.
I appreciate the absurdity, nay, the enormity of the position in allits grossness. And my excuse for these pages must be this: that thoughthe story itself is nothing, it has yet had such odd and unforeseenconsequences and adventures that the tale of them may possess someinterest. And then, again, there are certain psychological morals tobe drawn from the whole matter of the tale and its sequel of rumoursand discussions that are not, I think, devoid of consequence; and soto begin at the beginning.
This was in last August, to be more precise, on the last Sunday oflast August. There were terrible things to be read on that hot Sundaymorning between meat and mass. It was in The Weekly Dispatch that Isaw the awful account of the retreat from Mons. I no longer recollectthe details; but I have not forgotten the impression that was then onmy mind, I seemed to see a furnace of torment and death and agony andterror seven times heated, and in the midst of the burning was theBritish Army. In the midst of the flame, consumed by it and yetaureoled in it, scattered like ashes and yet triumphant, martyred andfor ever glorious. So I saw our men with a shining about them, so Itook these thoughts with me to church, and, I am sorry to say, wasmaking up a story in my head while the deacon was singing the Gospel.
This was not the tale of "The Bowmen". It was the first sketch, as itwere, of "The Soldiers' Rest". I only wish I had been able to write itas I conceived it. The tale as it stands is, I think, a far betterpiece of craft than "The Bowmen", but the tale that came to me as theblue incense floated above the Gospel Book on the desk between thetapers: that indeed was a noble story—like all the stories that neverget written. I conceived the dead men coming up through the flames andin the flames, and being welcomed in the Eternal Tavern with songs andflowing cups and everlasting mirth. But every man is the child of hisage, however much he may hate it; and our popular religion has longdetermined that jollity is wicked. As far as I can make out modernProtestantism believes that Heaven is something like Evensong in anEnglish cathedral, the service by Stainer and the Dean pr