Part 18 (1/2)
One good old friend, active as ever, William Senior, now editor of _The Field_, gives a genial tribute to Henty's memory from personal knowledge when he says, that as a special correspondent his readiness to help, and the practical manner in which he set about his work, combined with the thoroughness with which he took care of every small detail, were at once an encouragement and a stimulus to his colleagues.
Fortunately one has at command Henty's own description of what he considers a special correspondent should be. To begin with, he says that he should be a man capable of supporting hards.h.i.+ps and fatigues; that he should possess a certain amount of pluck, a good seat in the saddle such as would enable him to manage any mount whose services he could command; and lastly, that he should have the manners of a gentleman and the knack of getting on well with all sorts and conditions of men. This is a good deal to expect from one man, but without being eulogistic it may rightly be said that Henty possessed all these qualifications.
To a certain extent he was gifted with these qualities by nature, and where he felt himself to be wanting in any one point, his energy urged him to strengthen that weakness and strain every nerve until he had mastered the failing.
Accident has had much to do with the making of war correspondents, as in his own case; but Dr Russell and Wood of the _Morning Post_ had both been connected with the press before being sent to the Crimea.
Sometimes, however, military men with a ready gift of writing have offered their services to report on the wars in which their regiments were engaged, as in the case of Captains Hozier and Brackenbury, who made excellent correspondents and still continued in the army.
Archibald Forbes, when quite a young man, served in a cavalry regiment, and after leaving the army did a little reporting before going out with a sort of roving commission to the Franco-German War. Thence he sent divers reports to a London newspaper, with the unpleasant result of being recalled, and this, too, at a time when he was primed with news of the most important nature. So special was his information, and of such extreme value, that, without writing a line, as he told the writer, he hurried over to England with all the speed possible, presented himself at the _Times_ office, and asked to see the editor. In most newspaper offices, when the application is made by a perfect stranger, this is a privilege that the busy head of an important paper is rather loath to grant, and a messenger was sent out to Forbes asking his business.
Forbes's reply was that he had come straight from the front with most important news, and he was told, after sending in that message, that if he would write an article containing what he had to communicate, the editor would consider his ma.n.u.script, and, if it were approved, use and pay for it. Forbes told me in his sharp military way that he was not going to write and be treated like that, knowing how important was his information; and he said, ”I went out from the _Times_ office, walked into Fleet Street, and stood at the edge of the pavement half-way between, hesitating as to whether I should go to the _Telegraph_ office, or down Bouverie Street to the _Daily News_.”
His hesitation did not last long. He went down the latter street and asked to see the manager. He was shown in at once to the office of my old friend, the late Sir John Robinson (Mr Robinson in those days), who listened to what he had to say, and like the keen man of business that he was, he grasped the value of Forbes's information, and told him to go into a room which he pointed out and write a column. This he did, and it was put into type as fast as it was written. Soon after it was done he asked to see the manager again, and being shown in once more, Sir John Robinson said, ”Have you got any more?”
”Yes,” said Forbes; ”plenty.”
”Then go and write another column.”
This was written in turn, and after it was done Forbes, still rather indignant about his previous ill-successes with the press, and not being blessed with Henty's way of dealing with all sorts and conditions of men, took offence at some words spoken by Sir John, which roused his acerbity and resulted in his being highly offended and leaving the manager's room in dudgeon. The _Daily News_ ”chief” was taken by surprise at the way in which the hot-blooded Scot had quitted him, and, hurrying down the stairs out into Bouverie Street, he overtook the angry ex-dragoon in Fleet Street. Having thus captured him and brought him back to his own room, he explained to him laughingly that he wanted him to go on writing until he had exhausted his information, and then he was to go off back immediately to the front as the representative of the _Daily News_, with full munitions, and to send over at his discretion all information that he could collect concerning the war.
This was a strange commencement of the important career of one who in the opinion of journalists began at once to make a brilliant name for himself, for this, Forbes's first literary coup, placed him at one stride in the same rank as William Howard Russell of the _Times_, the well-known author of _My Diary in India_. The opinion of the journalistic world was directly endorsed by the British public, who proved it by sending up the circulation of the _Daily News_ to a wonderful extent throughout the war; and this lasted until the day when, pa.s.sing by the _Daily News_ publis.h.i.+ng office in Fleet Street, the writer saw posted up Forbes's terse telegrams announcing to an astonished world the utter defeat of the French. The rest is familiar history.
Henty states that a good seat upon a horse is one of the valuable qualifications for a war correspondent, for it may come to pa.s.s that when at great risk and effort the gleaner of intelligence has obtained his requisite information by following the vicissitudes of the campaign wheresoever the battle rages, he may find himself perhaps thirty or forty miles away from the nearest telegraph station. There is nothing to be done in such a case but for the correspondent to write his valuable despatch as crisply and as carefully as possible, and then ride away at full speed so as to get the message at the earliest moment upon the wires. This task accomplished, he must, after a brief rest, mount once more and return to the front.
Later, it was in this way that, during the Zulu War, Forbes was the first to send home an account of the Battle of Ulundi, bearing with him, so trusted was he, some of the general's despatches as well as his own report. Where, however, the telegraphic facilities are not within reach, it is necessary for the correspondent to entrust the report he has written to the official post-bag, for he dare not absent himself long from the front, not knowing what events of importance may happen while he is away.
In the Franco-German war another correspondent, Beattie Kingston-- polished gentleman, scholar, and able musician, who had been representing the _Daily Telegraph_ in Vienna and elsewhere--was acting as correspondent with the German army; and of other war correspondents it remains to mention the familiar names of Bennett Burleigh and E.F.
Knight, the latter of whom distinguished himself by writing the brilliant little account of _The Cruise of the ”Falcon”_, which reads as graphically as if it had come from the pen of Defoe. After Knight had taken up the risky duties of reporting wars, and had been sent to the Pamir to report our little frontier engagement with the restless mountain tribes, he did something more than go to the front, for in one of the engagements he was with a little column whose officers were all shot down, and with the splendid energy and pluck of the fighting penman he dashed into the fighting line, took the place of the fallen leader, and led the men to success.
This struggle--not his own special fight, for he is too simple and modest a man to play the part of Plautus's braggart captain--he recorded in his work, _Where Three Empires Meet_. Later, when journalism claimed him again to be the war correspondent and he went out to the Boer War, news came to the little club of which he is one of the most popular members, that he was with the advancing line of the 42nd Highlanders at Magersfontein and had been shot down. He lay with the rest of the unfortunates of that saddening day, trusting for first aid to one of the sergeants of the regiment who knelt down to bandage his shattered arm, panting with excitement to be off the while.
Another sufferer this in the great cause of gathering the freshest news, for E.F. Knight paid dearly for his well-earned fame. He was sent down with another wounded man picked out from about forty hopeless cases, ”just to give me a chance,” and though he suffered the complete loss of an arm, he finally recovered, thanks to Sir Frederick Treves. After this he studied and practised the art of writing quickly and clearly with his left hand, and from the Far East sent graphic reports of the Russo-j.a.panese War. That is the kind of stuff of which George Henty's friends and companions were made.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.
HENTY AND HIS BOOKS.
For the benefit of his many boy readers with whom Henty's stories were most popular, a writer on the staff of _Chums_ paid Henty a visit one day. He described him as a tall man, ma.s.sive in build, with a fine head and a commanding presence, the lower part of his face adorned with a great flowing beard, and though his hair was almost white, the dark beard was only slightly flecked with silver threads. He had the appearance of a man who had knocked about the world and rubbed shoulders with strange bed-fellows, and looked as though he would be a capital companion and just the sort of person with whom one would like to share the solitude of a desert island. There is no doubt that the writer said this in the full belief that Henty would have been an ideal comrade--a brave man, amiable, happy in temper, straightforward, and ready at a pinch to dare danger to the very death.
The visit paid to him was, primarily, to ask him how he wrote his books.
”How does a man write his books?” is a question that calls for a little thought before answering. One man will write them mentally from end to end before putting pen to paper; another will jot down sketchy notes which, after months of thought and labour, represent so many sc.r.a.ps that have to be picked out, set in something like order, and then fitted into shape as if they were pieces of a dissected puzzle; and only then, after much work, do they take form as a comprehensive whole. Again, another will spend years over the construction of a book, sparing no pains, in the full knowledge that he will never be able to write another; and after all it may prove to be not worth the reading, or, if worth the trouble, it may be utterly wanting in that indescribable element which enchains the reader at once and keeps his attention riveted to the very end. Yes, that indescribable something which is given to so few by nature--the few who, somehow, find themselves writing as no man to their knowledge ever wrote before; and so say their readers. For there is a peculiarity in some men's thoughts when placed on paper in print--a something which attracts, through the soul that is in it, people of all ranks and cla.s.ses--the highly-cultivated cla.s.sical scholar, the student of other men's works, the great criminal or civil judge whose life has been spent in examining the ways, thoughts, and acts of every form of human nature, the best as well as the vilest and worst.
And yet this book which affords such intense delight to its reader, often by its pathos, less often by its mirth--for, strangely enough, one finds that the gift of being humorous is extremely rare--will give as much pleasure to the half-educated child as it does to the man whom poor old Captain Cuttle, d.i.c.kens's simple-hearted child-like creation, described as ”chock full of science.” Now, how is this? I, the writer of these lines, have been a reader for seventy years, and I must frankly confess that I don't know, and my honest belief is that I never shall.
But this I do know, that I found all this attraction ready for my reading thirst in a story ent.i.tled _Rip Van Winkle_, in the pages of an old, old magazine called the _Queen Bee_. This story somehow painted a picture in my young brain of the Catskill Mountains and the Dutchmen playing ninepins, while the roll of the b.a.l.l.s resounded and re-echoed like thunder, and the voice that rang out, crying, ”Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” sounds, at any time when I think upon it, loud and clear.
There is the picture still, like a dream of the photography that I was to live to see in all its present beauty, only clear and bright and better still; for there are the colours of nature which some of us yet may see photographed in the continuation of these wondrous days in which science has given us so much.
There is no saying how a man contrives to write a book; but this is the question that George Henty's visitor asked, as he sat near a table where closely-written sheets lay in a heap, apparently just as they had been laid together by the writer. There was a half laugh, followed by the rather disconcerting reply: ”I do not write any of my books myself. I get a man to do them for me--an amanuensis, of course; it all comes out of my head, but he does all the actual writing. I never see any of my work until it comes to me from the printers in the shape of proof-sheets. My amanuensis sits at the table, and I sit near him, or lie on the sofa, and dictate the stories which I publish.”
So said Henty to his visitor, and he might have added, ”and smoke the while,” for nature must have needed something in the way of sedative for the brain so constantly upon the strain.