The Angels of Mons | Page 2

poisonous place
than the average tavern; still, as I say, one's age masters one, and clouds
and bewilders the intelligence, and the real story of "The Soldiers'
Rest", with its "sonus epulantium in æterno convivio", was ruined at

the moment of its birth, and it was some time later that the actual story
got written. And in the meantime the plot of "The Bowmen" occurred
to me. Now it has been murmured and hinted and suggested and
whispered in all sorts of quarters that before I wrote the tale I had heard
something. The most decorative of these legends is also the most
precise: "I know for a fact that the whole thing was given him in
typescript by a lady-in-waiting." This was not the case; and all vaguer
reports to the effect that I had heard some rumours or hints of rumours
are equally void of any trace of truth.
Again I apologise for entering so pompously into the minutiæ of my bit
of a story, as if it were the lost poems of Sappho; but it appears that the
subject interests the public, and I comply with my instructions. I take it,
then, that the origins of "The Bowmen" were composite. First of all, all
ages and nations have cherished the thought that spiritual hosts may
come to the help of earthly arms, that gods and heroes and saints have
descended from their high immortal places to fight for their
worshippers and clients. Then Kipling's story of the ghostly Indian
regiment got in my head and got mixed with the mediævalism that is
always there; and so "The Bowmen" was written. I was heartily
disappointed with it, I remember, and thought it--as I still think it--an
indifferent piece of work. However, I have tried to write for these
thirty-five long years, and if I have not become practised in letters, I am
at least a past master in the Lodge of Disappointment. Such as it was,
"The Bowmen" appeared in The Evening News of September 29th,
1914.
Now the journalist does not, as a rule, dwell much on the prospect of
fame; and if he be an evening journalist, his anticipations of
immortality are bounded by twelve o'clock at night at the latest; and it
may well be that those insects which begin to live in the morning and
are dead by sunset deem themselves immortal. Having written my story,
having groaned and growled over it and printed it, I certainly never
thought to hear another word of it. My colleague "The Londoner"
praised it warmly to my face, as his kindly fashion is; entering, very
properly, a technical caveat as to the language of the battle-cries of the
bowmen. "Why should English archers use French terms?" he said. I

replied that the only reason was this--that a "Monseigneur" here and
there struck me as picturesque; and I reminded him that, as a matter of
cold historical fact, most of the archers of Agincourt were mercenaries
from Gwent, my native country, who would appeal to Mihangel and to
saints not known to the Saxons--Teilo, Iltyd, Dewi, Cadwaladyr
Vendigeid. And I thought that that was the first and last discussion of
"The Bowmen". But in a few days from its publication the editor of The
Occult Review wrote to me. He wanted to know whether the story had
any foundation in fact. I told him that it had no foundation in fact of
any kind or sort; I forget whether I added that it had no foundation in
rumour but I should think not, since to the best of my belief there were
no rumours of heavenly interposition in existence at that time.
Certainly I had heard of none. Soon afterwards the editor of Light wrote
asking a like question, and I made him a like reply. It seemed to me
that I had stifled any "Bowmen" mythos in the hour of its birth.
A month or two later, I received several requests from editors of parish
magazines to reprint the story. I--or, rather, my editor-- readily gave
permission; and then, after another month or two, the conductor of one
of these magazines wrote to me, saying that the February issue
containing the story had been sold out, while there was still a great
demand for it. Would I allow them to reprint "The Bowmen" as a
pamphlet, and would I write a short preface giving the exact authorities
for the story? I replied that they might reprint in pamphlet form with all
my heart, but that I could not give my authorities, since I had none, the
tale being pure invention. The priest wrote again, suggesting--to my
amazement--that I must be mistaken, that the main "facts" of "The
Bowmen" must be true, that my share in the matter must surely