The Sword of Deborah

MP3 Audio CD. The Sword of Deborah

CHAPTER I

A.B.C.


This world of initials ... in which the members of the British
Expeditionary Force live and move--it is a bewildering place for the
outsider. Particularly to one who, like the writer, has never been able
to think in initials, any more than in dates or figures. The members of
the B.E.F.--and that at least is a set of letters that conveys something
to all of us--not only live amidst initials, but are themselves embodied
initials. To them the string of letters they reel off is no meaningless
form, no mere abracadabra to impress the supplicant, but each is a
living thing, coloured, definitely patterned, standing for something in
flesh and blood, or stone and mortar; something concrete and present to
the mind's eye at the mere mention.

Just as, to anyone who does not know New York, it seems as though all
the streets must sound exactly alike, being merely numbered, while, to
anyone who knows them, the words East Sixty First, say, are as distinct
from East Twenty First, distinct with a whole vivid personality of their
own, as Half Moon Street from Threadneedle Street--so, to the initiate
in the game, the letters so lightly rattled off to designate this or
that official or institution stand for vivid, real, colourable things.

But at first one is reminded forcibly of that scene in "Anna Karenina"
where Levin proposes to Kitty for the second time by means of writing in
chalk on a table the letters "W, y, t, m, i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t,"
and Kitty, with great intelligence, guesses that they mean "When you
told me it could never be, did that mean never, or then?" Kitty, if you
remember, replies in initials at almost equal length, and Levin displays
an intelligence equal to hers. I had always found