In 1920 May Sinclair took the opportunity to write yet another fantasy version of her unsatisfactory experience with a field ambulance organisation in Belgium at the beginning of the War. She had already published her Journal of the expedition, revealing her frustration at not being fully valued as one of the team and at being denied opportunities for action that were given to younger women. The subtext of that book is a sad comedy, based on her inability to see that an independent-minded (I suspect bossy and interfering) middle-aged woman was unlikely to make an ideal team member of an ambulance crew. She was sidelined back to England and told that she would not be wanted any more in Belgium.
Her first fictional version of her Belgian experiences was Tasker Jevons, a not very good novel that imagines a different kind of outsider, the ungentlemanly Tasker (based on H.G.Wells, some people reckon), and lets him triumph gloriously in ways that she had not been allowed to. He is so full of Bergsonian élan vital that in war-torn Belgium he shows no fear. He manages to rescue two of his wife’s disapproving family from danger, and to lose an arm in the most romantic of circumstances. It is hard not to see this as an enthusiastic dramatisation of Sinclair’s own fantasy. If only she were a man, she too would be allowed to rescue people from burning buildings.
The Romantic is a much more interesting book; the end of the War allows Sinclair to write without having to keep one eye on the propaganda effect she is creating. The age of its heroine, Charlotte Redhead, is never specified, but she has a “past” before she meets a farmer, John Conway. They become a partnership, but – at his wish – not a sexual one. When War comes, Conway’s rich father supplies him with ambulances, and the pair go with another couple to Belgium, to help out during the retreat. One character explains:
“the British Red Cross wouldn’t look at them and their field ambulance, but the Belgians, poor things, you know, weren’t in a position to refuse. They would have taken almost anything.”
There are interesting and rather convincing scenes about the rivalry between this ambulance group and another collection of English amateurs who have come out with the same mission.
At last the team get a chance to show their worth (as Sinclair herself never did). Her heroine is so enthusiastic that on her first mission she not only rescues Belgian soldiers under shellfire, but goes back to save their machine guns as well. Richard Aldington read the story in proof, and pointed out that this act was a clear breach of the Hague Convention – ambulances and weapons must never mix. Sinclair kept the episode in the novel, but changes the proofs to have her heroine told off for it.
Gradually the fearless Charlotte begins to realise that the man she loves is a coward, running from danger. The chapters where she knows this but refuses to consciously believe it are very well done, as she grasps at any shred of evidence that might exculpate him.
I’m not quite so sure about the psychology of Conway. The idea is that he’s not just a coward, but a bully as well. He wants to be in control, and can’t stand losing control – which is why he panics when under shellfire, and why he keeps his relationship with Charlotte on a non-threatening non-sexual basis. I suppose this is a possible complex of fears and desires, but it seems rather in excess of the situation, as if fear has to be psychologised away as abnormal. I don’t think a terror of shellfire always results from sexual problems.
In the end Charlotte (Sinclair’s fantasy substitute in the novel) finds another nice man who’s secretly adored her all the time. That’s nice.
It’s a very readable book, but is unconvincing once you start comparing it with – for example – A.P. Herbert’s The Secret Battle, a very different account of cowardice that appeared at about the same time. Herbert’s book is a protest against the execution of a man worn down and demoralised by war. Sinclair seems to thoroughly endorse the impromptu execution of her coward by an indignant Belgian soldier. Finally, I can’t take Sinclair seriously as a critic of the War.
Others think more highly of her. Here is a link to an article by Suzanne Raitt that includes a much more positive view of the book.
