Arms and the Man, George Bernard Shaw [best classic novels TXT] 📗

pursuit will go on all night by

fits and starts. I must take my chance to get off during a quiet

interval. You don’t mind my waiting just a minute or two, do

you?

RAINA. Oh, no: I am sorry you will have to go into danger again.

(Motioning towards ottoman.) Won’t you sit—(She breaks off

with an irrepressible cry of alarm as she catches sight of the

pistol. The man, all nerves, shies like a frightened horse.)

MAN (irritably). Don’t frighten me like that. What is it?

RAINA. Your pistol! It was staring that officer in the face all

the time. What an escape!

MAN (vexed at being unnecessarily terrified). Oh, is that all?

RAINA (staring at him rather superciliously, conceiving a

poorer and poorer opinion of him, and feeling proportionately

more and more at her ease with him). I am sorry I frightened

you. (She takes up the pistol and hands it to him.) Pray take it

to protect yourself against me.

MAN (grinning wearily at the sarcasm as he takes the pistol).

No use, dear young lady: there’s nothing in it. It’s not loaded.

(He makes a grimace at it, and drops it disparagingly into his

revolver case.)

RAINA. Load it by all means.

MAN. I’ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I

always carry chocolate instead; and I finished the last cake of

that yesterday.

RAINA (outraged in her most cherished ideals of manhood).

Chocolate! Do you stuff your pockets with sweets—like a

schoolboy—even in the field?

MAN. Yes. Isn’t it contemptible?

(Raina stares at him, unable to utter her feelings. Then she sails away scornfully to the chest of drawers, and returns with the box of confectionery in her hand.)

RAINA. Allow me. I am sorry I have eaten them all except these.

(She offers him the box.)

MAN (ravenously). You’re an angel! (He gobbles the comfits.)

Creams! Delicious! (He looks anxiously to see whether there are

any more. There are none. He accepts the inevitable with

pathetic goodhumor, and says, with grateful emotion) Bless you,

dear lady. You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of

his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols

and cartridges; the old ones, grub. Thank you. (He hands back

the box. She snatches it contemptuously from him and throws it

away. This impatient action is so sudden that he shies again.)

Ugh! Don’t do things so suddenly, gracious lady. Don’t revenge

yourself because I frightened you just now.

RAINA (superbly). Frighten me! Do you know, sir, that though I

am only a woman, I think I am at heart as brave as you.

MAN. I should think so. You haven’t been under fire for three

days as I have. I can stand two days without shewing it much;

but no man can stand three days: I’m as nervous as a mouse. (He

sits down on the ottoman, and takes his head in his hands.)

Would you like to see me cry?

RAINA (quickly). No.

MAN. If you would, all you have to do is to scold me just as if

I were a little boy and you my nurse. If I were in camp now

they’d play all sorts of tricks on me.

RAINA (a little moved). I’m sorry. I won’t scold you. (Touched

by the sympathy in her tone, he raises his head and looks

gratefully at her: she immediately draws hack and says stiffly)

You must excuse me: our soldiers are not like that. (She moves

away from the ottoman.)

MAN. Oh, yes, they are. There are only two sorts of soldiers:

old ones and young ones. I’ve served fourteen years: half of

your fellows never smelt powder before. Why, how is it that

you’ve just beaten us? Sheer ignorance of the art of war,

nothing else. (Indignantly.) I never saw anything so

unprofessional.

RAINA (ironically). Oh, was it unprofessional to beat you?

MAN. Well, come, is it professional to throw a regiment of

cavalry on a battery of machine guns, with the dead certainty

that if the guns go off not a horse or man will ever get within

fifty yards of the fire? I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw

it.

RAINA (eagerly turning to him, as all her enthusiasm and her

dream of glory rush back on her). Did you see the great cavalry

charge? Oh, tell me about it. Describe it to me.

MAN. You never saw a cavalry charge, did you?

RAINA. How could I?

MAN. Ah, perhaps not—of course. Well, it’s a funny sight. It’s

like slinging a handful of peas against a window pane: first one

comes; then two or three close behind him; and then all the rest

in a lump.

RAINA (her eyes dilating as she raises her clasped hands

ecstatically). Yes, first One!—the bravest of the brave!

MAN (prosaically). Hm! you should see the poor devil pulling at

his horse.

RAINA. Why should he pull at his horse?

MAN (impatient of so stupid a question). It’s running away with

him, of course: do you suppose the fellow wants to get there

before the others and be killed? Then they all come. You can

tell the young ones by their wildness and their slashing. The

old ones come bunched up under the number one guard: they know

that they are mere projectiles, and that it’s no use trying to

fight. The wounds are mostly broken knees, from the horses

cannoning together.

RAINA. Ugh! But I don’t believe the first man is a coward. I

believe he is a hero!

MAN (goodhumoredly). That’s what you’d have said if you’d seen

the first man in the charge to-day.

RAINA (breathless). Ah, I knew it! Tell me—tell me about him.

MAN. He did it like an operatic tenor—a regular handsome

fellow, with flashing eyes and lovely moustache, shouting a

war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills. We

nearly burst with laughter at him; but when the sergeant ran up

as white as a sheet, and told us they’d sent us the wrong

cartridges, and that we couldn’t fire a shot for the next ten

minutes, we laughed at the other side of our mouths. I never

felt so sick in my life, though I’ve been in one or two very

tight places. And I hadn’t even a revolver cartridge—nothing

but chocolate. We’d no bayonets—nothing. Of course, they just

cut us to bits. And there was Don Quixote flourishing like a

drum major, thinking he’d done the cleverest thing ever known,

whereas he ought to be courtmartialled for it. Of all the fools

ever let loose on a field of battle, that man must be the very

maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide—only the

pistol missed fire, that’s all.

RAINA (deeply wounded, but steadfastly loyal to her ideals).

Indeed! Would you know him again if you saw him?

MAN. Shall I ever forget him. (She again goes to the chest of

drawers. He watches her with a vague hope that she may have

something else for him to eat. She takes the portrait from its

stand and brings it to him.)

RAINA. That is a photograph of the gentleman—the patriot and

hero—to whom I am betrothed.

MAN (looking at it). I’m really very sorry. (Looking at her.)

Was it fair to lead me on? (He looks at the portrait again.)

Yes: that’s him: not a doubt of it. (He stifles a laugh.)

RAINA (quickly). Why do you laugh?

MAN (shamefacedly, but still greatly tickled). I didn’t laugh,

I assure you. At least I didn’t mean to. But when I think of him

charging the windmills and thinking he was doing the finest

thing—(chokes with suppressed laughter).

RAINA (sternly). Give me back the portrait, sir.

MAN (with sincere remorse). Of course. Certainly. I’m really

very sorry. (She deliberately kisses it, and looks him straight

in the face, before returning to the chest of drawers to replace

it. He follows her, apologizing.) Perhaps I’m quite wrong, you

know: no doubt I am. Most likely he had got wind of the

cartridge business somehow, and knew it was a safe job.

RAINA. That is to say, he was a pretender and a coward! You did

not dare say that before.

MAN (with a comic gesture of despair). It’s no use, dear lady:

I can’t make you see it from the professional point of view. (As

he turns away to get back to the ottoman, the firing begins

again in the distance.)

RAINA (sternly, as she sees him listening to the shots). So

much the better for you.

MAN (turning). How?

RAINA. You are my enemy; and you are at my mercy. What would I

do if I were a professional soldier?

MAN. Ah, true, dear young lady: you’re always right. I know how

good you have been to me: to my last hour I shall remember those

three chocolate creams. It was unsoldierly; but it was angelic.

RAINA (coldly). Thank you. And now I will do a soldierly thing.

You cannot stay here after what you have just said about my

future husband; but I will go out on the balcony and see whether

it is safe for you to climb down into the street. (She turns to

the window.)

MAN (changing countenance). Down that waterpipe! Stop! Wait! I

can’t! I daren’t! The very thought of it makes me giddy. I came

up it fast enough with death behind me. But to face it now in

cold blood!—(He sinks on the ottoman.) It’s no use: I give up:

I’m beaten. Give the alarm. (He drops his head in his hands in

the deepest dejection.)

RAINA (disarmed by pity). Come, don’t be disheartened. (She

stoops over him almost maternally: he shakes his head.) Oh, you

are a very poor soldier—a chocolate cream soldier. Come, cheer

up: it takes less courage to climb down than to face

capture—remember that.

MAN (dreamily, lulled by her voice). No, capture only means

death; and death is sleep—oh, sleep, sleep, sleep, undisturbed

sleep! Climbing down the pipe means doing something—exerting

myself—thinking! Death ten times over first.

RAINA (softly and wonderingly, catching the rhythm of his

weariness). Are you so sleepy as that?

MAN. I’ve not had two hours’ undisturbed sleep since the war

began. I’m on the staff: you don’t know what that means. I

haven’t closed my eyes for thirty-six hours.

RAINA (desperately). But what am I to do with you.

MAN (staggering up). Of course I must do something. (He shakes

himself; pulls himself together; and speaks with rallied vigour

and courage.) You see, sleep or no sleep, hunger or no hunger,

tired or not tired, you can always do a thing when you know it

must be done. Well, that pipe must be got down—(He hits himself

on the chest, and adds)—Do you hear that, you chocolate cream

soldier? (He turns to the window.)

RAINA (anxiously). But if you fall?

MAN. I shall sleep as if the stones were a feather bed.

Good-bye. (He makes boldly for the window, and his hand is on

the shutter when there is a terrible burst of firing in the

street beneath.)

RAINA (rushing to him). Stop! (She catches him by the shoulder,

and turns him quite round.) They’ll kill you.

MAN (coolly, but attentively). Never mind: this sort of thing

is all in my day’s work. I’m bound to take my chance.

(Decisively.) Now do what I tell you. Put out the candles, so

that they shan’t see the light when I open the shutters. And

keep away from the window, whatever you do. If they see me,

they’re sure to have a shot at me.

RAINA (clinging to him). They’re sure to see you: it’s bright

moonlight. I’ll save you—oh, how can you be so indifferent? You

want me to save you, don’t you?

MAN. I really don’t want to be troublesome. (She shakes him in

her