In the summer of 1916, a young lieutenant on the Western
Front learned that one of his closest friends had died on the first day of the
Somme. He wrote, “Something has gone crack…. I
don’t feel a member of a little complete body now…I feel a mere individual.”[i]
The officer was J.R.R. Tolkien, and his grief and sense of
dislocation was prompted by the death of Robert Gilson. Tolkien and Gilson, together with Christopher
Wiseman and Geoffrey Bache Smith, had formed Tolkien’s “first fellowship.”
[ii]
The four were schoolmates at King Edward’s School in Birmingham, and beginning
in 1911, the boys met regularly in the school’s library and at Barrow’s, the
tea shop of a local department store. Calling themselves the TCSB (Tea Club and
Barrovian Society), the friends discussed their ambitions for shaping a better world
through literature and art.
The Great War interrupted their plans, and all four enlisted
in military service: Wiseman in the Navy, and Tolkien, Gilson, and Smith with
the British Army. Only Wiseman and
Tolkien would survive the war.
Geoffrey Bache Smith was also devastated to learn of his
friend’s death. His poem “Let us tell quiet stories of kind eyes” mourns the loss
of Gilson while asserting that friendship itself can never die.
Let us tell quiet stories of kind eyes
And placid brows where peace and learning sate;
Of misty gardens under evening skies
Where four would walk of old, with steps sedate.
Let's have no word of all the sweat and blood.
Of all the noise and strife and dust and smoke
(We who have seen Death surging like a flood,
Wave upon wave, that leaped and raced and broke).
Or let's sit silently, we three together,
Around a wide hearth-fire that's glowing red,
 |
| Grave of Robert Quilter Gilson, Becourt |
That flies above the roof-tree overhead.
And he, the fourth, that lies all silently
In some far-distant and untended grave,
Under the shadow of a shattered tree,
Shall leave the company of the hapless brave,
And draw nigh unto us for memory's sake,
Because a look, a word, a deed, a friend,
Are bound with cords that never a man may break,
Unto his heart for ever, until the end.
Steeped in melancholy and nostalgia, the poem offers a lament not only for
a lost friend, but for a lost world. Recalling misty gardens under evening skies, the poem recreates a tranquil world of dim twilight. Innocent school days before the
war are so far removed from the mud and gore of the trenches that they appear veiled by mist, impossibly distant.
In memory, four men on the brink
of adulthood sedately walk abreast.
Their gathering is not regimented, nor do they march ahead. Instead, in the remembered days “of old,” they saunter together,
loose and easy in the freedom of friendship and leisure.
The poem attempts, no matter how briefly, to deny
the present reality. It begs for the
mercy of oblivion as it attempts to block out the surrounding sweat, blood, noise, and grime. The poet knows that Death is a ravaging flood that
cannot be turned back -- it outraces and overwhelms all men in its path. And yet the poet asks for a temporary truce. For a moment in the midst of the war,
Geoffrey Bache Smith pauses to imagine another world, a world far removed from
the Western Front.
In this world apart, the three surviving members of that
first fellowship gather around the welcoming fire of a home or a library or a
pub. Finding comfort in one another’s
company, they are immune to the turmoil that rages outside. And yet outside, “under
the shadow of a shattered tree” one of their dearest friends, the fourth of
their circle, lies “all silently/In some far-distant and untended grave.”
Avowing a bond stronger than death, Smith imagines his lost
comrade leaving his grave and for a moment, deserting the company of the other unlucky, courageous dead
of the war. In this imagined world, the
resurrected man draws near “for memory’s sake,” proof that the bonds of love
and friendship can never be broken.
“Let us tell quiet stories of kind eyes” is a poem of
friendship, but its undertones echo the somber poetry of the Old Testament book
of Ecclesiastes:
Remember now thy
Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years
draw nigh…. because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the
streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or
the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it (Eccl 12:1, 5-7)
Six months after Gilson’s death, in early December of 1916, Geoffrey Bache Smith was
struck by shrapnel from an exploding artillery shell. Although his wounds were not initially
thought serious (while waiting to be transported to the casualty clearing
station, Smith smoked a cigarette and wrote a reassuring letter to his mother)[iii],
gas gangrene set in, and two days later he died.
Almost a year before, anticipating a dangerous night patrol
mission in early February of 1916, Smith had written to Tolkien about death and
friendship:
“my chief
consolation is, that if I am scuppered tonight there will still be left a great
member of the TCBS to voice what I dreamed and what we all agreed upon. For the
death of one of its members cannot, I am determined, dissolve the TCBS. Death
is so close to us now that I feel - and I am sure that you feel, and all the
three other heroes feel, how impuissant it is. Death can make us loathsome and
helpless as individuals, but it cannot put an end to the immortal four! ...
Yes, publish... May God bless you, John Ronald, and may you say the things I
have tried to say long after I am not here to say them, if such is my
lot."
In 1918, JRR Tolkien wrote the preface to Smith’s
posthumously published book of poetry, A
Spring Harvest, and when he published The
Hobbit in 1937, Tolkien sent copies to “some friends and relations,
including…the mother of his dear friend Geoffrey Bache Smith, who had died in
battle over twenty years before.”[iv]
Robert Quilter Gilson is buried at Becourt; Geoffrey Bache Smith lies at Warlincourt.
[i]
Tolkien’s letter is quoted in John Garth’s Tolkien
and the Great War (2013), page 176.
[iii] John
Garth, Tolkien and the Great War (2013), page 211.
Tolkien certainly lived up to the TCBS code and aims in his work. Went to a lecture by John Garth earlier this year and he gave some interesting insights into how WW1 permeate Tolkeins work
ReplyDeleteWish I could attend a John Garth lecture; his insights into Tolkien and the war are remarkable.
DeleteRead the poem again and the "steps sedate" section resonates with me . I recall one last such walk with an old school friend who did not tell me that he was terminally ill - probably for fear that I would molly coddle him and not treat him with my usual joking scorn. But reminds me of the importance of such friendships where there can be silences without lack of closeness because of deep shared experiences
ReplyDeleteWhat a poignant memory -- I don't think I'll read the phrase "steps sedate" quite the same ever again, without recalling this story. Thanks, Ian.
DeleteSuch a great tribute.
ReplyDeleteI never realised the importance of the TCBS for Tolkien as an artist and - I believe - as a man until I read John Garth's book about the Great War. Reading that, I became very attached to this small group of young men who had dreams and hopes for the future. Truly, they were the Lost Generation.
But, as history would have it, not all was lost, and it was in loss that at least one of them, Tolkien, found the core of his message and his art. And ultimately hope.
John Garth's work is exceptional; thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.
Delete