18 
LAND ^ WATER 
November 7, 1918 
Recent Novels 
THE East," says Mr. Frank Sidgwick, in one of 
his l3Tical moments, "the East may call her 
lovers to Islands of the Blest. . . , Where 
there ain't no Ten Commandments and a man 
can raise a thirst. But 1, a little Englander, 
put little England first." And I, a satiated reviewer, after 
reading Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith's Little England (Nisbet, 
7S. net), am in my gratitude disposed to echo his heart-cry. 
1 had occasion to remark last week that in rustic P2ngland 
of the novelists the principal incidents of daily life were 
seductions and desertions, and that all the most interesting 
inhabitants were illegitimate ; and 1 did not feel inclined, 
on this basis, to clamour for any more rustic novels. But 
Miss Kayc-Smith converts me. Her story is not built up 
roimd any central episode or character. It deals with a 
group of Sussex people of the yeoman farmer class and wliat 
fiappens to them under the strain of war. Tom Beatup, a 
boy of twenty, who has long kept Worges Farm out of the 
hands of the auctioneer in spite of his drunken father, is at 
• last refused exemption by the tribunal, and hands over to 
his younger brother, Harry. Harry, formerly an idle scape- 
grace, is fired by the food-production campaign, and toils 
to make the farm yield more than ever before. Ivy Beatup, 
a blowsy country girl, and Nell Beatup, a refined, anaemic 
pupil-teacher, have, as well as Tom, their appropriate love 
affairs. Mr. Sumption, whom religious ecstacy took from 
the forge and turned into a half-educated Baptist Minister, 
broods over his gipsy son Jerry, and seeks to protect him 
from Satan. Jerry leaves a munition factory, the regularity 
of which oppresses him, for the Army, and is at last shot for 
desertion at the front. This gives a bare idea, perhaps, of 
the material which Miss Kaye-Smith has handled. She has put 
real, unremitting work into her book, which does not contain a 
single loose or unnecessary paragraph, and gives a vivid 
picture of all these people and their surroundings and the 
crises of their lives. She can rise, too, to moments of great 
intensity, as, for example, when the Beatups labour all 
Sunday against the approaching rain to save their crops, 
and Mr. Sumption, working with them against his convic- 
tions, bursts at the end into wild and harsh but impressive 
thanksgiving. And, again, there is a really moving passage 
when Mr. Sumption preaches in his Bethel on the death of 
his disgraced son and rebukes his congregation for their 
indifference to the men who are dying for them at the front 
and for coming in curiosity as to a spectacle to witness his 
sorrow. The novel of country life has not often been done 
as well as this ; and it is to be hoped that nothing will induce 
Miss Kaye-Smith to forsake little England for the Islands 
of the Blest. 
Mr. W. J. Locke is, of course, a gifted performer who can 
write novels on his head ; and his latest volume, The Rough 
Road (Lane, 6s. 6d. net) shows no diminution in his gift. 
It tells the tale of "Doggie" Trevor, brought up in cotton 
wool, who was so incompetent that he had to resign his 
commission in the New Army and at last redeemed himself 
in the ranks. Mr. Locke, as always, sets out his story with 
unflagging skill and ingenuity, and devises a series of events 
that must touch all hearts. I venture to assure him, how- 
ever, that Doggie, milksop as he was, would not have been 
ragged and harried as Mr. Locke represents him to have 
been in any mess of the new armies training in England. 
The officers of those days were all too well aware of their 
own incompetence, too busily engaged in making a fresh 
start themselves, to have bullied a little man who, like Doggie, 
was trying very hard. And, further — an exponent of reper- 
tory theatre principles once observed that when an actor 
showed signs of being able to play Hamlet on his head, it 
was high time to set him to play Polonius. I think it might 
be of advantage to Mr. Locke, who is really too clever at 
turning out smooth and competent novels, if he were com- 
pelled to busy himself for a little while on, say, the hves of 
the Lord Chief Justices or a treatise on industrial economics. 
He would come back to novel-writing, I think, with his 
mental muscles perhaps more climisy, but certainly tougher. 
It would be an experience for him very much like that by 
which Doggie profited so much in the ranks. 
The Navy 
It is, one supposes, not to be wondered at that the Navy 
should have absorbed the persons who have entered it since 
the beginning of the war much more completely than the 
Army has done. The Silent Service, large and taciturn, 
swallowed up the newcomers, and they became more silent 
than itself ; and, though the rule of silence has been partially 
relaxed, it is noticeably the older hands who have become 
more vocal. Both "Bartimeus," who has just produced a 
new book. The Navy Eternal, and the anonymous author of 
The Curtain of Steel (Hodder & Stoughton, fas. net pach) are 
old hands, and this enables them, perhaps, to give a rfiore 
comprehensive and penetrating account of the Navy in war 
time than could have been the case if they had never seen 
the Fleet until it was at its war stations. As it is, their two 
testimonies convince by their complete agreement as they 
charm by their simplicity, vividness, and humour, so that 
it is not easy to make a distinction between them. 
"Bartimeus" has set himself as an object to give some idea 
of the different branches of work in the Navy and to show 
how "The Navy-that-lloats," "The Navy-that-flies," and 
"The Navy-under-the-sea," in spite of the dissimilarity of 
their tasks, are animated by the same spirit and inspired 
by the same traditions. Therefore he begins an agreeable 
compound of fiction and plain descriptive reporting on the 
River Dart, and pursues the cadets through their subsequent 
careers. As is only to be expected, some of his stories, 
particularly his submarine stories, are full of tlirills and 
horrors ; and none surpass in power the grisly tale of the 
submarine petty-officer, sole survivor of the crew, who 
toiled for two hours in the sunken boat, in rising water and 
chlorine gas, and let himself out at last to the surface by 
way of tue torpedo-hatch. Yet none is more characteristic 
than another submarine story : 
At dawn she was sighted by two German seaplanes on 
patrol ; she dived immediately, but the winged enemy 
. . . were on top of her before the swirl of her dive had 
left the water. Now, it^must be e.xplained that a certain 
electrically controlled mechanism in the interior of a sub- 
marine is so constructed that il any shock throws it out of 
adjustment, a bell rings loudly to advertise^ the fact. As 
the S|Ubmarine dived, two bombs dropped from the clouds, 
burst in rapid succession dangerously adjacent to the hull. 
The boat was still trembling from the concussion, when 
sharp and clear above the hum of the motors rang out the 
electric-bell referred to. "Maria," said a voice out of the 
shimmering perspective of machinery and motionless 
figures awaiting Death, "give the gentleman a bag of nuts ! " 
All the spirit of the Navy lies in those two stories ; and, in 
expounding that spirit, the author of The Curtain of Steel 
is a worthy colleague of "Bartimeus," which is very high 
praise indeed. 
Various Volumes 
The war on land is the theme of The Flaming Sword of 
^France, by M. Henry Malherbe (Dent, 6s. net), and our 
great amphibious campaign that of A Gallipoli Diary, by 
Major Graham Gillam, D.S.O. (Allen & Unwin, I2S. fad, net). 
It is tempting to find types of the military spirit of France 
and England in these two volumes, the first of which is a 
series of sketches in which the French sword flames indeed, 
though not more than on the battle-field, while the second is 
a clear and matter-of-fact account of what an A.S.C. officer 
saw of -the Dardanelles fighting. But this would be carrying 
research into national characteristics too far for sanity. It 
is enough to say that each book in its different manner is 
an interesting contribution to the understanding of war and 
the men who make it. For those who desire an interlude 
of rest from war. Dr. Sully's My Life and Friends (Fisher, 
Unwin, I2S. fad. net) may be recommended. This volume of 
"a psychologist's memories" contains many amusing stories 
of Herbert, Spencer, Bain, Leslie Stephen, G. H. Lewes, 
George Eliot, William James, and others. A characteristic 
story is that of Henry Sidgwick, who, asked by a German 
scholar whether there were not in England any Gelehrte, 
replied that there were, indeed, but that in this country 
they were called (and here his engaging stammer lent point 
te the remark) "p-p-prigs." Petek Bell. 
