[Illustration: THE SHIRE HORSES: WHEELERS OF A 4·7,
“Who will look at my ‘Waterloos’ now? I have but one more of that series to do. Then I shall stop and turn all my attention and energy to this stupendous war. I shall call up my Indian sowars again, but _not_ at play this time.
“_October 3rd_.--Sketched Patrick’s three beautiful chargers’ heads in water colour. Still the word ‘Go!’ is suspended over our heads.
“_October 4th_.--The word ‘Go!’ has just sounded. In ten minutes Patrick had to run and get his handbag, great coat and sword and be off with his General to London. They pass through here to-morrow on their way to embark.
“_October 5th_, 1914.--I was down at seven, and as they did not finally leave till 8.15 I had a golden half-hour’s respite. Then came the parting....”
I left Lyndhurst at once. It will ever remain with me in a halo of physical and spiritual sunshine seen through a mist of sadness.
On November 2nd, 1914, my son Patrick was severely wounded during the terrible, prolonged first Battle of Ypres, and was sent home to be nursed back to health and fighting power at Guy’s Hospital, where I saw him. He told me that as he lay on the field his General and Staff passed by, and all the General said was, “Hullo, Butler! is that you? Good-bye!”[19] General Capper was as brave a soldier as ever lived, but, I think, too fond for a General of being, as he said he wished to be, _in the vanguard_. Thus he met his death (riding on horseback, I understand) at Loos. Patrick’s brother A.D.C., Captain Isaac, whom I daily used to see at Lyndhurst, was killed early in the War. The poor fellow, to calm my apprehensions regarding my own son, had tried to assure me that, as A.D.C., he would be as safe as in Piccadilly.
Towards the end of 1914 London had become intensely interesting in its tragic aspect, and so very unlike itself. Soldiers of all ranks formed the majority of the male population. In fact, wherever I looked now there was some new sight of absorbing interest, telling me we were at war, and such a war! Bands were playing at recruiting stations; flags of all the Allies fluttered in the breeze in gaudy bunches; “pom-pom” guns began to appear, pointing skywards from their platforms in the parks, awaiting “Taubes” or “Zeppelins.” I went daily to watch the recruits drilling in the parks--such strangely varied types of men they were, and most of them appearing the veriest civilians, from top to toe. Yet these very shop-boys had come forward to offer their all for England, and the good fellows bowed to the terrible, shouting drill-sergeants as never they had bowed to any man before. What enraged me was the giggling of the shop-girls who looked on--a far harder ordeal for the boys even than the yells of the sergeants. One of the squads in the Green Park was supremely interesting to me one day, in (I am bound to say) a semi-comic way. These recruits were members and associates of the Royal Academy. They were mostly somewhat podgy, others somewhat bald. When resting, having piled arms, they played leap-frog, which was very funny, and showed how light-heartedly my brothers of the brush were going to meet the Boche. Of the maimed and blind men one met at every turn I can scarcely write. I find that when I am most deeply moved my pen lags too far behind my brush.