  A HERO AFTER THE MANNER OF ROLAND. December. General Vaughan Campbell, Brigadier of the —th Infantry Brigade, having done us the honour to pay us a visit, invited us, for this Thursday, to share his meal. The General has made his winter quarters in a country house, beside which there is a duck-pond. An English breakfast awaited us; that is to say, a hearty welcome, no ceremony, and food of the best. Outside in the park, under the trees that the hoar-frost loads, the brigade band favours us with the liveliest melodies from Bric-À-brac, The Girl in the Taxi and, above all, those Bing Boys, who seem fated to eclipse Tipperary itself in the general favour. It is three degrees below freezing-point. All round the band they have had to set a circle of braziers. I am on the General's left, a particular distinction which I purchase at the cost of sitting with my back against an open window, where I become the sport of a whole battlefield of draughts. But it is a cheap price for the company of General Vaughan Campbell. This is one of the most popular men in the British Army. He must surely be the youngest of its Generals, for he is not yet 38. This very month King George has still further swelled the number of his orders by giving him the Victoria Cross. Only 250 men in the whole Army can boast of this honour. The man's quality is evident. He is strength and good nature personified. With his rider's legs, his broad, short body, muscular yet supple, he is the picture of a sporting Englishman. The merry eye betrays the simple heart. The wind and the open-air life have tanned his face like a seaman's. He wears, moreover, an odd little cat's moustache, two red, bristling tufts, which makes one think This General is a hero; a hero in that great style which glorifies every gallant action with the touch of chivalry. One evening in the trenches he performed a feat worthy of Roland. The story is well known. In September last General Vaughan Campbell was a Colonel in the Guards. His regiment held the first line, immediately next to the Germans. One evening the order came to attack at midnight. It fell to the Coldstreams to undertake this dangerous business. It was a sweet and tranquil autumn night. The men fought with sleep, harder to resist than any pain. But the hour for the attack had come. This Colonel has a knightly soul. He perceives that his men, far from their home, living for ever in holes, and mud and fog, sometimes lose their vision of the true meaning of this war. It is their souls that must be stirred. And the Colonel, who used to be the keenest Master of Fox Hounds in Shropshire, recollected that he had among his things a hunting-horn whose call was clearer than any cornet's. He got his men together, gave them the word to "go over," and then, jumping on to the parapet, blew "gone away" with the full strength of his lungs. As if in this fierce summons they heard the very voice of their own country, the Coldstreams, wild with delight, charged madly on the heels of this new Roland. The call of the horn sounded weirdly through the night above "No Man's Land." It is to these men like the bagpipes to the Highlander; a voice from the Homeland and the call of the Empire. Colonel Campbell is the first man in the enemy's trench. His cat's moustache has become a tiger's. Even with his horn he lays about him. With it he stuns the FORRARD AWAY!11. A DRAWING IN "PUNCH" INSPIRED BY GENERAL CAMPBELL'S HEROIC ACT. Reproduced by special permission of the proprietors of "Punch." All England has heard the tale. The Guards, whom the Colonel left but yesterday to become a General, have presented him with a silver hunting-horn, inscribed, in commemoration of his deed, with an account of it and this glorious motto: "Nulli Secundus." The King has rewarded his magnificent exploit with the rank of General. And the Empire has awarded him unhesitatingly that for which the bravest soldiers of this brave race rejoice to die—the Cross that bears the words "For Valour." A little time after the splendid action which I have recorded a young girl, whose name is not known, sent the following letter to General Campbell. This touching message alone would be enough to illustrate this Book of the Friendship of France and Britain. "Paris, "I send you the thanks of a French girl for the gallant deed—the deed À la franÇaise—which you have performed. We do not know one another, perhaps we never shall, but in the sky there is many a meeting between the stars. Why should not souls on earth come sometimes, then, together? "General—Paladin, should I not say?—I knew your country very little. I thought that the Divine Pity and the Greatest Beauty were unknown to you; that through your fogs the light could never find its way. And then you put your hunting horn to your lips; you were inspired so beautifully to go to your encounter with Death, your head held high, the music of your homeland sounding your advance. "My ancestor fought at Fontenoy, and I can appreciate the refinements of chivalry. And so I beg you to receive my apologies. You have conquered much more "And if, now and then, you are ever sad, think, I pray you, of the fair little twenty-year-old French girl whose ignorance you have enlightened, whom you have shown how to judge England. And if you have no love of your own, no woman's tender care to warm your heart with its genial kindliness, permit me to embrace you with all my soul. And smile, sometimes, to think that the daughter of an officer of France, the Land of Chivalry, is thinking of you. "'A Happy Christmas. A Glad New Year.' I wish you a great victory and a great love." "Copy of a letter sent to General John Vaughan Campbell by favour of Monsieur Tudesq. Will you have the very great kindness to bring this expression of my admiration to the General? Accept also my congratulations upon your truly heart-stirring narrative. "J. F." |
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