WRITING A WAR STORY

by Eglitza D. Harlan
wharton

109

Miss Ivy Spang of Cornwall-on-Hudson had published a little volume of verse before the war, called "Vibrations," and was

It was preceded by a "Foreword" in which the author stated that she had yielded to the urgent request of "friends" in exposing her first-born to the public gaze. The public had not gazed very hard or very long, but the Cornwall-on-Hudson "News-Despatch" had a flattering notice by the wife of the Rector of St Dunstan's, (signed "Asterisk") in which, while the somewhat unconventional sentiment of the poems was gently deprecated, a graceful and ladylike tribute was paid to the "brilliant daughter of one of our most prominent and influential citizens, who has voluntarily abandoned the primrose way of pleasure to scale the rugged heights of Parnassus."

Also, after sitting one evening next to him at a Bohemian dinner in New York, Miss Spang was honoured by an article by the editor of "Zig-zag", the new "Weekly Journal of Defiance", in which that gentleman hinted that there was more than she knew in Ivy Spang's poems, and that their esoteric significance showed that she was a vers-librist in thought as well as in technique. He added that they would "gain incommensurably in meaning" when she abandoned the prologue to beginning each line with a capital letter.

The editor

The editor sent a heavily-marked copy to Miss Spang, who was intensely flattered, and felt that at last she had been understood. But nobody she knew read "Zig-zag", and nobody who read "Zig-zag" seemed to

2.

care to know her. So nothing in particular resulted from this tribute
to her genius.

Then the war came, and she forgot all about writing poetry.

The war was two years old, and she had been pouring tea once
a week for a whole winter in a big American Hospital in Paris, when
one day, as she was passing through the flower-edged court on her way
to her ward, she heard one of the doctors say to a pale gentleman in
civilian clothes and spectacles, "But I believe that pretty Miss
Spang writes. If you want an American contributor, why not ask her?"
And the next moment the pale gentleman had been introduced, and, beaming
anxiously at her through his spectacles, was urging her to contribute
a rattling War Story to the "Man-at-Arms", a monthly publication
that was to bring joy to the wounded and disabled in British
Hospitals.

"A good rousing story, Miss Spang; a dash of sentiment, of
course, but nothing to depress or discourage. I'm sure you catch
my meaning? A tragedy with a happy ending—that's about the idea.
But I leave it to you, with your experience of hospital work of
course you know just what hits the poor fellows' taste. Do you think
you could have it ready for our first number? And have you a portrait
if possible in nurse's dress—to publish with it? The Queen of
Norromania has promised us a poem, with a picture of herself giving
the baby Crown-Prince his morning tub. We want the first number to be
an actuality, as the French say: all the articles written by people
who've done the thing themselves, or seen it done. You've been at the
front, I suppose? As far as Rheims, once? That's capital! Give us a

A.

seemed to understand how a war story — or any story, for that matter —
was written. Why did stories begin, and why did they ever leave off?
Life didn't — it just went on and on, and so on.

This unforeseen problem troubled her exceedingly, and on the
second morning she stealthily broke from her seclusion, and slipped
out for a walk on the beach. She had been ashamed to make known her
projected escapade, and went alone, leaving her faithful governess to
mount guard on her threshold while she sneaked out by a back way.

There were plenty of people on the beach, and among them some
whom she knew; but she dared not join them lest they should frighten
away her "Inspiration". She knew that "Inspirations" were fussy and
contrarious, and she felt rather as if she were dragging along a
reluctant dog on a string.

"If you wanted to stay indoors why didn't you say so?" she
grumbled to it. But the Inspiration continued to sulk.

She wandered apart under the cliff till she came to an empty
bench, where she sat down and gazed at the sea. After a while,
her eyes
were dazzled by the light, and she turned them toward the bench,
saw lying on it a battered magazine, — the midsummer "All-Story" number
of the "Fact and Fiction". Ivy pounced upon it.

She had heard a good deal about not allowing one's self to
be "influenced", about jealously guarding one's originality, and so
forth; the editor of "Zig-zag" had been particularly strong on that
theme. But her story had to be written, and she didn't know how to
begin it; so she decided just to glance casually at a few beginnings.

The first tale in the magazine was signed by a name great in
fiction, one of the most famous names of the past generation of novel-
ists. It began: "In the month of October, 1914 —" and Ivy turned the
page impatiently. She may not have known much about story-writing,

5.

but she did know that *that* kind of a beginning was played out. She
turned to the next.

"'My God'," roared the engineer, tightening his grasp on the
lever, while the white sneering face under the red lamp..."

No; that was beginning to be out of date, too.

"They sat there and stared at it in silence. Neither spoke;
but the woman's heart ticked like a watch."

That was better; but *still better* she liked: "*May Lorimer*
leaned to him across the flowers. She had always *known* that this
was coming..." Ivy could imagine tying a story on to *that*.

But she had promised to write a war story; and in a war story
the flowers must be at the end and not at the beginning.

At any rate, there was one clear conclusion to be drawn from
the successive study of all these opening paragraphs; and that was
that you must begin in the middle, and take for granted that your
reader knew what you were talking about.

Yes; but where was the middle, and how could your reader know
what you were talking about when you didn't know yourself?

After some reflection, and more furtive scrutiny of "Fact and
Fiction", the puzzled authoress decided that perhaps, if you pretended
hard enough that you knew what your story was about, you might end by
finding out toward the last page. "After all, if the reader can
pretend, the author ought to be able to," she reflected. And she
decided (after a cautious glance over her shoulder) to steal the
magazine and take it home with her for private dissection.

On the threshold she met her governess, who beamed on her
tenderly.

"Chérie, I saw you slip off, but I didn't follow. I knew you
wanted to be alone with your Inspiration." Mademoiselle lowered her

6.

voice to add: "Have you found your plot?"

Ivy tapped her gently on the wrinkled cheek. "Dear old Madsy!
People don't bother with plots nowadays."

"Oh, don't they, darling? Then it must be very much easier,"
said Mademoiselle. But Ivy was not so sure —

After a day's brooding over "Fact and Fiction" she
decided to begin on the empiric system. ("It's sure to come to me as
I write", she thought.) So she sat down before the mauve paper and
 began: "A shot rang out —"

But just as she was appealing to her Inspiration to suggest
the next phrase, a horrible doubt assailed her, and she got up and
turned to "Fact and Fiction". Yes — it was just as she had feared,
the last story in "Fact and Fiction" began: "A shot rang out —"

Its place on the list showed that the editor and his public
thought of that kind of an opening, and her contempt for it was
increased by reading the author's name. The story was signed "Edda
Clubber Hump". Poor thing!

Ivy sat down and gazed at the page which she had polluted
with that silly sentence.

And now (as they often said in "Fact and Fiction") a strange
thing happened. The sentence was there — she had written it — it
was the first sentence on the first page of her story, it was the
first sentence of her story. It was there, it had gone out of her,
got away from her, and she seemed to have no further control of it.
She could imagine no other way of beginning, now that she
had made the effort of beginning in that way.

She supposed that was what authors meant when they talked
about being "mastered by their Inspiration". She began to hate her
Inspiration.

7.

On the fifth day an abased and dejected Ivy confided to her old governess that she didn't believe she knew how to write a short story.

"If they'd only asked me for poetry!" she wailed.

She wrote to the editor of "The Man-at-Arms", begging for permission to substitute a sonnet; but he replied firmly, if flatteringly, that they counted on a story, and had measured their space accordingly — adding that they already had rather more poetry than the first number could hold. He concluded by reminding her that he counted on receiving her contribution not later than September first; and it was now the tenth of August.

"It's all so sudden," she murmured to Mademoiselle, as if she were announcing her engagement.

"Of course, dearest, — of course! I quite understand. How could the editor expect you to be tied to a date? But so few people know what the artistic temperament is; they seem to think one can dash off a story as easily as one makes an omelet."

Ivy smiled in spite of herself. "Dear Madsy, what an unlucky simile! So few people make good omelets."

"Not in France," said Mademoiselle firmly.

Her former pupil reflected. "In France a good many people have written good short stories, too, — but I'm sure they were given more than three weeks to learn how. Oh, what shall I do?" she groaned.

8.

The two pondered long and anxiously; and at last the governess
modestly suggested: "Supposing you were to begin by thinking of a
subject?"

"Oh, my dear, the subject's nothing!" exclaimed Ivy, remembering
some contemptuous statement to that effect by the editor of "Zig-zag".

"Still -- in writing a story, one has to have a subject. Of
course I know it's only the treatment that really matters; but the
treatment, naturally, would be yours, quite yours..."

The authoress lifted a troubled gaze upon her Mentor. "What
are you driving at, Madsy?"

"Only that during my year's work in the hospital here I picked
up a good many stories — pathetic, thrilling, moving stories of
our poor <u>poilus</u>; and in the evening, sometimes, I used to jot them
down, just as the soldiers told them to me — oh, without any art at
all... simply for myself, you understand..."

Ivy was on her feet in an instant. Since even Mademoiselle
admitted that "only the treatment really mattered" why should she not
seize on one of these artless tales and transform it into Literature?
The more she considered the idea, the more it appealed to her; she
remembered Shakespeare and Molière, and "Je prends mon bien oh je le
trouve", and said gaily to her governess: "You darling Madsy! Do lend
me your book to look over — and we'll be collaborators!"

"Oh — collaborators!" blushed the governess, overcome. But
she finally yielded to her charge's affectionate insistence, and brought
out her shabby copybook, which began with lecture notes on Mr. Bergson's
course at the Sorbonne in 1913, and suddenly switched off to "Military
Hospital N° 13. November, 1914. Long talk with the Chasseur Alpin
Emile Durand, wounded through the knee and the left lung at the Hautes
Chaumes. I have decided to write down his story..."

9.

Ivy carried the little book off to bed with her, inwardly smiling at the fact that the narrative, written in a close, tremulous hand, covered each side of the page, and poured on and on without a paragraph—a good deal like life. Decidedly, poor Mademoiselle did not even know the rudiments of Literature!

The story, not without effort, gradually built itself up about the adventures of Emile Durand. Notwithstanding her protests, Mademoiselle, after a day or two, found herself called upon in an advisory capacity, and finally as a collaborator. She gave the tale a certain consecutiveness, and kept Ivy to the main point when her pupil showed a tendency to wander; but she carefully revised and polished the rustic speech in which she had originally transcribed the tale, so that it finally issued forth in the language that a young lady writing a composition on the Battle of Hastings would have used in Mademoiselle's school days.

Ivy decided to add a touch of sentiment to the anecdote which was purely military, both because she knew that the reader was entitled to a certain proportion of "heart interest", and because she wished to make the subject her own by this original addition. The revisions and transpositions which these changes necessitated made the work one of uncommon difficulty; one day, in a fit of discouragement, Ivy privately decided to notify the editor of "The Man-at-Arms" that she was ill and could not fulfill her engagement.

But it happened that very afternoon the "artistic" photographer to whom she had posed for her portrait sent home the proofs; and she saw herself, exceedingly long, narrow and sinuous, robed in white

10.

and monastically veiled, holding out a refreshing beverage to an invisible sufferer with a gesture halfway between Mélisande lowering her braid over the balcony and Florence Nightingale advancing with the lamp.

The photograph was really too charming to be wasted, and Ivy, feeling herself forced onward by an inexorable fate, sat down again to battle with the art of fiction. Her perseverance was rewarded, and after a while the fellow-authors (though Mademoiselle Mlle disclaimed any right to the honours of literary partnership) arrived at what seemed to both a satisfactory result.

"You've written a very beautiful story, my dear," Mademoiselle sighed with moist eyes; and Ivy modestly agreed that she had.

The task was finished on the last day of her leave; and the next morning she traveled back to Paris, clutching the manuscript to her bosom, and forgetting to keep an eye on the bag that contained her passport and money, in her terror lest the precious pages should be stolen.

As soon as the tale was typed she did it up in a heavily-sealed envelope (she knew that only silly girls used blue ribbon for the purpose), and despatched it to the pale gentleman in spectacles, accompanied by the Mélisande-Nightingale photograph. The receipt of both was acknowledged by a courteous note (she had secretly hoped for more enthusiasm), and thereafter life became a desert waste of suspense. The very globe seemed to cease to turn on its axis while she waited for "The Man-at-Arms" to appear.

Finally one day a thick packet bearing an English publisher's name was brought to her: she undid it with trembling fingers, and there, beautifully printed on the large rough pages, her story stood out before her.

II.

At first, in that heavy text, on those heavy pages, it seemed
to her a pitifully small thing, hopelessly insignificant and yet
conspicuous. It was as though words meant to be murmured to sympathetic
friends were being megaphoned into the ear of a heedless universe.

Then she began to turn the pages; she analyzed the poems, she
read the Queen of Norromania's domestic confidences, and she looked
at the portraits of the authors. The latter experience was peculiarly
comforting. The Queen was rather good-looking — for a Queen — but her
hair was drawn back from the temples as if it were wound round a windlass, and stuck out over her forehead in the good old-fashioned Royal
Highness fuzz; and it was evident her prose was oddly built out of
London drawing-room phrases grafted onto German genetives and datives.
It was evident that neither Ivy's portrait nor her story would suffer
by comparison with the royal contribution.

But most of all was she comforted by the poems. They were
not really all written on Kipling rhythms that broke down after two or
three wheezy attempts to "carry on", and their knowing mixture of slang
and pathos seemed oddly old-fashioned to the author of "Vibrations".
Altogether, it struck her that "The Man-at-Arms" was made up in equal
parts of tired compositions by people who knew how to write, and artless
prattle by people who didn't. Against such a background "His Letter
Home" began to loom up rather large.

At any rate, it took such a place in her consciousness for the
next day or two that it was bewildering to find that no one about her
seemed to have heard of it. "The Man-at-Arms" was conspicuously shown
in the windows of the principal English and American bookshops, but
she failed to see it lying on her friends' tables; and finally, when
her tea-pouring day came round, she bought a dozen copies and took them
up to the English ward of her hospital, which happened to be full at
the time.

12.

It was not long before Christmas, and the men and officers were
rather busy with home correspondence and the undoing and doing-up of
seasonable parcels; but they all received "The Man-at-Arms" with an
appreciative smile, and were most awfully pleased to know that Miss
Spang had written something in it. After the distribution of her tale
Miss Spang became suddenly hot and shy, and slipped away before they
had begun to read her.

The intervening week seemed long; and it was marked only by the
appearance of a review of "The Man-at-Arms" in the Times — a long and
laudatory article — in which, by some odd accident, "His Letter Home" and its author were not so much as mentioned. Abridged versions of
this notice appeared in the English and American newspapers published
in Paris, and one anecdotic and intimate article in a French journal
celebrated the maternal graces and literary art of the Queen of Norro-
mania. It was signed "Fleur-de-Lys", and described a banquet at the
Court of Norromania at which the writer hinted that she had assisted.

The following week, Ivy reentered her ward with a beating heart.
On the threshold one of the nurses detained her with a smile.

"Do be a dear and make yourself specially nice to the new officer in No 5; he's only been here two days, and he's rather down on his luck. Oh, by the way — he's the novelist, Harold Harbard; you know, the man who wrote the book they made such a fuss about."

Harold Harbard — the book they made such a fuss about!
What a poor fool the woman was — not even to remember the title of
"Broken Wings"! Ivy's heart stood still with the shock of the discovery;
she remembered that she had left a copy of "The Man-at-Arms" in No 5,
and the blood coursed through her veins and flooded her to the forehead
at the idea that Harold Harbard might at that very moment be reading:
"His Letter Home."

I4.

"There couldn't be higher praise... there couldn't be better judge, you think it's really like, do you?"

"Really like? Rather! It's just topping," rang out the unanimous response.

She gasped. "Coming from you -- from all of you -- it makes me most awfully glad."

They all laughed together shyly, and then the lance-corporal spoke up.

"We admire it so much that we're going to ask you a most tremendous favour --"

"Oh, yes," came from the other beds.

"A favour --?"

"Yes; if it's not too much." The lance-corporal became eloquent. "To remember you by, and all your kindness; we want to know if you'll give one to each of us; / --"

("Why, of course, of course," Ivy glowed.)

"--to frame and take away with us," the lance-corporal continued sentimentally. "There's a chap here who makes rather jolly frames out of Vichy corks..."

"Oh --" said Ivy, with a protracted gasp.

"You see, in your nurse's dress, it'll always be such a jolly reminder," said the lance-corporal, concluding his lesson.

"I never saw a jollier photo," spoke up a bold spirit at his side.

"Oh, do say yes, nurse," the shyest of the patients softly whispered; and Ivy, bewildered between tears and laughter, said, "Yes."

It was evident that none of them had read her story.

15.

VII.

She stopped on the threshold of No 5, her heart beating uncomfortably.

She had already recovered from her passing mortification: it was absurd to have imagined that the inmates of the ward, dear, gallant young fellows, would feel the subtle meaning of a story like "His Letter Home". But with Harold Harbard it was different. Now, indeed, she was to be face to face with a critic; and it vexed her to think that she had wasted her nerves on her uncritical admirers in the ward.

She stopped on the threshold, and as she did so she heard a burst of hearty, healthy laughter from within. It was not the voice of the Polo-player; could it be that of the novelist? It relieved her to know that he was in a good humour.

She opened the door resolutely and walked in with her tray. The Polo-player's bed was empty, and the face on the pillow of the adjoining cot was the brown, ugly, tumultuous-locked head of Harold Harbard, well-known to her from frequent photographs in the literary weeklies. He looked up as she came in, and said in a voice that seemed to continue his laugh: "Tea? Come, that's something like!" And he began to laugh again.

It was evident that he was still carrying on the thread of his joke, and as she approached with the tea she saw that a copy of "The Man-at-Arms" lay on the bed at his side, and that he had his hand between the open pages.

Her heart gave an apprehensive twitch, but she determined to carry off the situation with a high hand.

16.

"How do you do, Captain Harbard? I suppose you're laughing at
the way the Queen of Norromania's hair is done."

He met her glance with a humorous look, and shook his head, while
the laughter still rippled the muscles of his throat.

"No — no; I've finished laughing at that. It was the next
thing; what's it called? 'His Letter Home', by —" The review
dropped abruptly from his hands, his brown cheek paled, and he fixed
her with a striken stare.

"Good Lord," he stammered out, "but it's you!"

She blushed all colours, and dropped into the seat at his
side. "After all," she faltered, half-laughing too, "at least you
read the story instead of looking at my photograph."

He continued to scrutinize her with a reviving eye. "Why —
do you mean that everybody else —?"

"All the ward over there," she assented, nodding in the
direction of the door.

"They all forgot to read the story for gazing at its author?"

"Apparently." There was a painful pause. The review dropped
from his lax hand.

"Your tea —?" she suggested, stiffly.

"Oh, yes; to be sure....Thanks."

There was another silence, during which the act of pouring out the milk, and the dropping of the sugar into the cup, seemed to assume enormous magnitude, and make an echoing noise. At length Ivy said, with an effort at lightness, "Since I know who you are, Mr. Harbard, — would you mind telling me what you were laughing at in my story?"

He leaned back against the pillows and wrinkled his forehead
anxiously.

17.

"My dear Miss Spang, not in the least — if I could."

"If you could?"

"Yes; I mean in any understandable way."

"In other words, you think it so silly that you don't dare to
tell me anything more?"

He shook his head. "No; but it's queer — it's puzzling. You've
got hold of a wonderfully good subject; and that's the main thing, of
course —"

Ivy interrupted him eagerly. "The subject is the main thing?"

"Why, naturally: it's only the people without invention who
tell you it isn't."

"Oh," she gasped, trying to readjust her carefully acquired
theory of aesthetics.

an
"You've got hold of an awfully good subject," Harbard continued;
"but you've rather mauled it, haven't you?"

She sat before him with her head drooping, and the blood
running back from her pale cheeks. Two tears had gathered on her
lashes.

"There!" the novelist cried out irritably, "I knew that as
soon as I was frank you'd resent it! What was the earthly use of ask-
ing me?"

She made no answer, and he added, lowering his voice a little,
"Are you very angry with me, really?"

"No, of course not," she declared with a stony gaiety.

"I'm so glad you're not; because I do want most awfully to
ask you for one of these photographs," he concluded, smiling a little.

She rose abruptly from her seat. To save her life she could
not conceal her disappointment. But she picked up the tray with feverish
animation.

18.

"A photograph? Of course — with pleasure. And now, if you've quite finished, I'm afraid I must run back to my tea pot."

▲ Harold Harbard lay on the bed and looked at her. As she reached the door he said, "Miss Spang!"

"Yes?" she rejoined, pausing reluctantly.

"You were angry just now because I didn't admire your story; and now you're angrier still because I do admire your photograph. Do you wonder that we novelists find such an inexhaustible field in Woman?"

The End.