Part 55

"I see we've had another unfortunate reverse," he said, looking up.

"Oh!"

"I suppose you're delighted, Jamie?"

"I'm very sorry. Why should I be otherwise?"

"You always stick up for the enemies of your country." Turning to his brother-in-law, he explained: "James says that if he'd been a Cape Dutchman he'd have fought against us."

"Well, he deserves to be court-martialled for saying so! "cried Major Forsyth.

"I don't think he means to be taken seriously," said his mother.

"Oh, yes, I do." It constantly annoyed James that when he said anything that was not quite an obvious truism, they should think he was speaking merely for effect. "Why, my dear mother, if you'd been a Boer woman you'd have potted at us from behind a haystack with the best of them."

"The Boers are robbers and brigands."

"That's just what they say we are."

"But we're right."

"And they're equally convinced that they are."

"God can't be on both sides, James."

"The odd thing is the certainty with which both sides claim His exclusive protection."

"I should think it wicked to doubt that God is with us in a righteous war," said Mrs. Parsons.

"If the Boers weren't deceived by that old villain Kruger, they'd never have fought us."

"The Boers are strange people," replied James. "They actually prefer their independence to all the privileges and advantages of subjection.... The wonderful thing to me is that people should really think Mr. Kruger a hypocrite. A ruler who didn't honestly believe in himself and in his mission would never have had such influence. If a man wants power he must have self-faith; but then he may be narrow, intolerant, and vicious. His fellows will be like wax in his hands."

"If Kruger had been honest, he wouldn't have put up with bribery and corruption."

"The last thing I expect is consistency in an animal of such contrary instincts as man."

"Every true Englishman, I'm thankful to say, thinks him a scoundrel and a blackguard."

"In a hundred years he will probably think him a patriot and a hero. In that time the sentimental view will be the only one of interest; and the sentimental view will put the Transvaal in the same category as Poland."

"You're nothing better than a pro-Boer, James."

"I'm nothing of the kind; but seeing how conflicting was current opinion, I took some trouble to find for myself a justification of the war. I couldn't help wondering why I went and killed people to whom I was personally quite indifferent."

"I hope because it was your duty as an officer of Her Majesty the Queen."

"Not exactly. I came to the conclusion that I killed people because I liked it. The fighting instinct is in my blood, and I'm never so happy as when I'm shooting things. Killing tigers is very good sport, but it's not in it with killing men. That is my justification, so far as I personally am concerned. As a member of society, I wage war for a different reason. War is the natural instinct of all creatures; not only do progress and civilisation arise from it, but it is the very condition of existence. Men, beasts, and plants are all in the same position: unless they fight incessantly they're wiped out; there's no sitting on one side and looking on.... When a state wants a neighbour's land, it has a perfect right to take it--if it can. Success is its justification. We English wanted the Transvaal for our greater numbers, for our trade, for the continuance of our power; that was our right to take it. The only thing that seems to me undignified is the rather pitiful set of excuses we made up."

"If those are your ideas, I think they are utterly ignoble."

"I believe they're scientific."

"D'you think men go to war for scientific reasons?"