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Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 755
Emerging
Technologies
in Data Mining
and Information
Security
Proceedings of IEMIS 2018, Volume 1
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
Volume 755
Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: kacprzyk@ibspan.waw.pl
The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” contains publications on theory,
applications, and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent Computing. Virtually all
disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information science, ICT, economics,
business, e-commerce, environment, healthcare, life science are covered. The list of topics spans all the
areas of modern intelligent systems and computing such as: computational intelligence, soft computing
including neural networks, fuzzy systems, evolutionary computing and the fusion of these paradigms,
social intelligence, ambient intelligence, computational neuroscience, artificial life, virtual worlds and
society, cognitive science and systems, Perception and Vision, DNA and immune based systems,
self-organizing and adaptive systems, e-Learning and teaching, human-centered and human-centric
computing, recommender systems, intelligent control, robotics and mechatronics including
human-machine teaming, knowledge-based paradigms, learning paradigms, machine ethics, intelligent
data analysis, knowledge management, intelligent agents, intelligent decision making and support,
intelligent network security, trust management, interactive entertainment, Web intelligence and multimedia.
The publications within “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” are primarily proceedings
of important conferences, symposia and congresses. They cover significant recent developments in the
field, both of a foundational and applicable character. An important characteristic feature of the series is
the short publication time and world-wide distribution. This permits a rapid and broad dissemination of
research results.
Advisory Board
Chairman
Nikhil R. Pal, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
e-mail: nikhil@isical.ac.in
Members
Rafael Bello Perez, Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas, Santa Clara, Cuba
e-mail: rbellop@uclv.edu.cu
Emilio S. Corchado, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
e-mail: escorchado@usal.es
Hani Hagras, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
e-mail: hani@essex.ac.uk
László T. Kóczy, Széchenyi István University, Győr, Hungary
e-mail: koczy@sze.hu
Vladik Kreinovich, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, USA
e-mail: vladik@utep.edu
Chin-Teng Lin, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
e-mail: ctlin@mail.nctu.edu.tw
Jie Lu, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: Jie.Lu@uts.edu.au
Patricia Melin, Tijuana Institute of Technology, Tijuana, Mexico
e-mail: epmelin@hafsamx.org
Nadia Nedjah, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
e-mail: nadia@eng.uerj.br
Ngoc Thanh Nguyen, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland
e-mail: Ngoc-Thanh.Nguyen@pwr.edu.pl
Jun Wang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
e-mail: jwang@mae.cuhk.edu.hk
Soumi Dutta
Editors
Emerging Technologies
in Data Mining
and Information Security
Proceedings of IEMIS 2018, Volume 1
123
Editors
Ajith Abraham Abhishek Bhattacharya
Machine Intelligence Research Labs Institute of Engineering and Management
Auburn, WA, USA Kolkata, West Bengal, India
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Organizing Committee
Patron
Prof. (Dr.) Satyajit Chakrabarti, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Convener
Dr. Subrata Saha, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Abhishek Bhattacharya, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Co-convener
Sukalyan Goswami, University of Engineering and Management, India
Krishnendu Rarhi, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Soumi Dutta, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Sujata Ghatak, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Dr. Abir Chatterjee, University of Engineering and Management, India
v
vi Organizing Committee
Editorial Board
Dr. Ajith Abraham, Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), USA
Dr. J. K. Mondal, University of Kalyani, India
Dr. Paramartha Dutta, Visva-Bharati University, India
Abhishek Bhattacharya, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Soumi Dutta, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Advisory Committee
Dr. Mahmoud Shafik, University of Derby
Dr. Mohd Nazri Ismail, National Defence University of Malaysia
Dr. Bhaba R. Sarker, Louisiana State University
Dr. Tushar Kanti Bera, University of Arizona, USA
Dr. Shirley Devapriya Dewasurendra, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
Dr. Goutam Chakraborty, Professor and Head of the Intelligent Informatics Lab,
Iwate Prefectural University, Japan
Dr. Basabi Chakraborty, Iwate Prefectural University, Japan
Dr. Kalyanmoy Deb, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Dr. Vincenzo Piuri, University of Milan, Italy
Dr. Biswajit Sarkar, Hanyang University, Korea
Dr. Raj Kumar Buyya, The University of Melbourne
Dr. Anurag Dasgupta, Valdosta State University, Georgia
Dr. Prasenjit Mitra, The Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Esteban Alfaro-Cortés, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Dr. Ilkyeong Moon, Seoul National University, South Korea
Dr. Izabela Nielsen, Aalborg University, Denmark
Organizing Committee vii
Dr. Prasanta K. Jana, IEEE Senior Member, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM),
Dhanbad
Dr. Gautam Paul, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata
Dr. Malay Bhattacharyya, IIEST, Shibpur
Dr. Sipra Das Bit, IIEST, Shibpur
Dr. Jaya Sil, IIEST, Shibpur
Dr. Asit Kumar Das, IIEST, Shibpur
Dr. Saptarshi Ghosh, IIEST, Shibpur, IIT KGP
Dr. Prof. Hafizur Rahman, IIEST, Shibpur
Dr. C. K. Chanda, IIEST, Shibpur
Dr. Asif Ekbal, Associate Dean, IIT Patna
Dr. Sitangshu Bhattacharya, IIIT Allahabad
Dr. Ujjwal Bhattacharya, CVPR Unit, Indian Statistical Institute
Dr. Prashant R. Nair, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (University), Coimbatore
Dr. Tanushyam Chattopadhyay, TCS Innovation Lab, Kolkata
Dr. A. K. Nayak, Fellow and Hony. Secretarý, CSI
Dr. B. K. Tripathy, VIT University
Dr. K. Srujan Raju, CMR Technical Campus
Dr. Dakshina Ranjan Kisku, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur
Dr. A. K. Pujari, University of Hyderabad
Dr. Partha Pratim Sahu, Tezpur University
Dr. Anuradha Banerjee, Kalyani Government Engineering College
Dr. Amiya Kumar Rath, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology
Dr. Kandarpa Kumar Sharma, Gauhati University
Dr. Amlan Chakrabarti, University of Calcutta
Dr. Sankhayan Choudhury, University of Calcutta
Dr. Anjana Kakoti Mahanta, Gauhati University
Dr. Subhankar Bandyopadhyay, Jadavpur University
Dr. Debabrata Ghosh, Calcutta University
Dr. Rajat Kr. Pal, University of Calcutta
Dr. Ujjwal Maulik, Jadavpur University
Dr. Himadri Dutta, Kalyani Government Engineering College, Kalyani
Dr. Brojo Kishore Mishra, C. V. Raman College of Engineering (Autonomous),
Bhubaneswar
Dr. S. Vijayakumar Bharathi, Symbiosis Centre for Information Technology (SCIT)
Dr. Govinda K., VIT University, Vellore
Dr. Ajanta Das, University of Engineering and Management, India
Technical Committee
Dr. Vincenzo Piuri, University of Milan, Italy
Dr. Mahmoud Shafik, University of Derby
Dr. Bhaba Sarker, Louisiana State University
Dr. Mohd Nazri Ismail, National Defence University of Malaysia
viii Organizing Committee
Mrs. Sunanda Das, Neotia Institute of Technology Management and Science, India
Mrs. Shampa Sengupta, MCKV Institute of Engineering, India
Dr. Brojo Kishore Mishra, C. V. Raman College of Engineering (Autonomous),
Bhubaneswar
Dr. S. Vijayakumar Bharathi, Symbiosis Centre For Information Technology, Pune
Dr. Govinda K., Vellore Institute of technology
Dr. Prashant R. Nair, Amrita University
Dr. Hemanta Dey, IEEE Senior Member
Dr. Ajanta Das, University of Engineering and Management, India
Dr. Samir Malakar, MCKV Institute of Engineering, Howrah
Dr. Tanushyam Chattopadhyay TCS Innovation Lab, Kolkata
Dr. A. K. Nayak Indian Institute of Business Management, Patna
Dr. B. K. Tripathy, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore
Dr. K. Srujan Raju, CMR Technical Campus, Hyderabad
Dr. Partha Pratim Sahu, Tezpur University
Dr. Anuradha Banerjee, Kalyani Government Engineering College
Dr. Amiya Kumar Rath, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Odisha
Dr. S. D. Dewasurendra,
Dr. Arnab K. Laha, IIM Ahmedabad
Dr. Kandarpa Kumar Sarma, Gauhati University
Dr. Ambar Dutta, BIT Mesra & Treasurer—CSI Kolkata
Dr. Arindam Pal, TCS Innovation Labs, Kolkata
Dr. Himadri Dutta, Kalyani Government Engineering College, Kalyani
Dr. Tanupriya Choudhury, Amity University, Noida, India
Dr. Praveen Kumar, Amity University, Noida, India
Organizing Chairs
Krishnendu Rarhi, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Sujata Ghatak, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Dr. Apurba Sarkar, IIEST, Shibpur, India
Organizing Co-chairs
Sukalyan Goswami, University of Engineering and Management, India
Rupam Bhattacharya, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Organizing Committee
Subrata Basak, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Anshuman Ray, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Rupam Bhattacharya, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Abhijit Sarkar, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Ankan Bhowmik, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Manjima Saha, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Biswajit Maity, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Soumik Das, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Sreelekha Biswas, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Nayantara Mitra, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Amitava Chatterjee, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Ankita Mondal, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Registration Chairs
Abhijit Sarkar, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Ankan Bhowmik, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Ankita Mondal, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Ratna Mondol, Institute of Engineering and Management, India
Publication Chairs
Dr. Debashis De, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, India
Dr. Kuntala Patra, Gauhati University, India
Web Chair
Samrat Goswami
Samrat Dey
Foreword
xiii
Preface
xv
xvi Preface
xvii
xviii Contents
Part VI Cryptology
Implementation and Analysis of Cryptographic Ciphers in FPGA . . . . . 653
V. G. Kiran Kumar and C. Shantharama Rai
Attack Experiments on Elliptic Curves of Prime
and Binary Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
Ni Ni Hla and Tun Myat Aung
Gait-Based Authentication System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Vivek Kumar, Chirag Gupta and Vatsal Agarwal
Pen-Drive Based Password Management System
for Online Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
Samruddhi Patil, Kumud Wasnik and Sudhir Bagade
A Comparative Analysis of Symmetric Lightweight
Block Ciphers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705
Asmita Poojari and H. R. Nagesh
A Novel Approach to Generate Symmetric Key in Cryptography
Using Genetic Algorithm (GA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
Chukhu Chunka, Rajat Subhra Goswami and Subhasish Banerjee
A Low-Cost, High-Performance Implementation of RSA Algorithm
Using GPGPU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725
P. S. Sasaank Srivatsa and P. V. R. R. Bhogendra Rao
Attacks and Threats on RSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737
Sreemoyee Biswas and Namita Tiwari
Private Communication Based on Hierarchical Identity-Based
Cryptography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749
D. Kalyani and R. Sridevi
Contents xxiii
xxv
xxvi About the Editors
Dr. Paramartha Dutta was born in 1966 and did his bachelors and masters in
statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, in the years 1988 and 1990,
respectively. He completed his M.Tech. in computer science from the same institute
in the year 1993 and Ph.D. in engineering from the Bengal Engineering and Science
University, Shibpur, in 2005. He has served in the capacity of research personnel in
various projects funded by the Government of India, which include Defence
Research Development Organization, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research,
Indian Statistical Institute. He is now Professor in the Department of Computer and
System Sciences of the Visva-Bharati University, West Bengal, India. Prior to this,
he served Kalyani Government Engineering College and College of Engineering in
West Bengal as full-time faculty member. He remained associated as visiting/guest
faculty of several universities/institutes such as West Bengal University of
Technology, Kalyani University, Tripura University.
He has co-authored eight books and has also seven edited books to his credit. He
has published more than two hundred technical papers in various peer-reviewed
journals and conference proceedings, both international and national, as well as
several chapters in edited volumes of reputed international publishing houses like
Elsevier, Springer-Verlag, CRC Press, John Wiley. He has guided six scholars who
already had been awarded their Ph.D. apart from one who has submitted her thesis.
Presently, he is supervising six scholars for their Ph.D. program.
He is the co-inventor of ten Indian patents and one international patent which are
all published apart from five international patents which are filed but not yet to be
published.
He, as an investigator, could implement successfully projects funded by All
India Council for Technical Education, Department of Science and Technology,
of the Government of India. He has served/serves in the capacity of external
member of Boards of Studies of relevant departments of various universities
encompassing West Bengal University of Technology, Kalyani University, Tripura
University, Assam University. He had the opportunity to serve as the expert of
several interview boards conducted by West Bengal Public Service Commission;
Assam University, Silchar; National Institute of Technology, Arunachal Pradesh;
Sambalpur University; etc.
He is Life Fellow of the Optical Society of India (FOSI), Institution of
Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (FIETE), and Institute of
Engineering (FIE); Life Member of Computer Society of India (LMCSI), Indian
Science Congress Association (LMISCA), Indian Society for Technical Education
(LMISTE), and Indian Unit of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence
(LMIUPRAI); the Indian affiliate of the International Association for Pattern
Recognition (IAPR); Senior Member of Associated Computing Machinery
(SMACM) and Institution of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (SMIEEE), USA.
Dr. Jyotsna Kumar Mandal completed his M.Tech. in computer science from the
University of Calcutta in 1987, was awarded Ph.D. (engineering) in computer
science and engineering by Jadavpur University in 2000, was Former Dean, Faculty
About the Editors xxvii
1 Preface
Applying the ANN in field is very confusing for any type of power network, espe-
cially making the choice for the type of neural net. In this work, a report on the
use of a multilayer feed-forward neural net with error backpropagation, for on-line
monitoring of MW (Active power) and MVAR (Reactive power) flowing on the lines
of a modified 5 bus power system has been elaborated. The work is particular in the
sense, that a multilayer neural net model with seven inputs, is used to monitor the
MW power flow on all seven lines of the power network, also a second neural net
model is used to monitor the MVAR power on all seven lines as well [1]. Initially,
a modified power network is developed on the Simulink environment of MATLAB,
then it is simulated on RT Lab. Then the MW and MVAR flow of all lines are recorded.
Then, these real-time data are tabulated in an Excel sheet and their corresponding
states are classified in a separate Excel sheet. The state classification of the power
network at each instant is done by comparing power flowing, with the thermal limits
of the transmission lines. We must include equal numbers of each state classification
(namely secure and insecure) for good convergence of ANN training. After that, we
train the ANN in off-line mode. When the training has converged, and gives accurate
classification results, we use it on RT lab simulation and observe the performance
[2, 3].
When his servant woke him, with tea and orders and the nightly lists
of traffic and stores, it was a wonderful golden and green sunset,
tremulous with the evening “hate.” The purple shadows were just
sufficiently long to admit of getting the wounded back, and the road
was filled with ambulances, whirring and grinding as they stopped,
backed, and restarted, while a steady punctual crash, once a minute,
showed that the Bosche were shelling the road or one of the
innumerable camps or dumps along it, in the neighbourhood. Amid
all this clamour, Kavanagh was not silenced, but recited at the top of
his voice, and Dormer had a suspicion that the real reason was that
it helped to keep down the nervousness that grew on men, as the
years of the War rolled on, and the probability of being hit increased.
Especially as, far overhead, the planes that circled and swooped like
a swarm of gleaming flies, were attracting considerable anti-aircraft
fire, and all round, big jagged bits were coming to earth with a noise
almost echoing that of the ambulances.
Dormer’s tidy mind was soon called into action. Some wounded who
had died on the way to the dressing station, had been laid out beside
the road as the ambulances had enough to do without carrying
corpses ten miles. He went to make sure the M.O. had arranged for
a burial party, as he had the strongest belief that casualties lying
about were bad for the morale of the troops. When he got back to
the dug-out, Kavanagh was “going on,” as he bent over a map of the
extensions of the divisional cable lines, like a crow on a gate.
“See those chaps, Dormer?”
“Quis procul hinc—the legends writ
The—er—Picard grave is far away,
Quis ante diem periit
Sed miles, sed pro patria.”
“Do you believe in pronouncing Latin like Julius Cæsar or like Jones
Minor?”
“I don’t believe in it at all. Pure waste of time!”
“Dormer, you are a Utilitarian!”
“Have it your own way so long as you get that cable line of yours
sited. I’ve got parties coming up to-morrow to dig it in!”
“I shall be ready for them. Think of all that language, and language is
only codified thought, buried in the ground, Dormer!”
“I have all the thinking I want over all the men buried in the ground.
We’re losing far too many!”
The “victory” of the Somme had been a saddening experience for
Dormer.
“That shows how wrong you are. We are mortal. We perish. But our
words will live.”
“Rot! Do you mean to say that ‘825 Brigade relieve you to-morrow
Nth. Div. Ack, ack, ack’ will live! Why should it? It’ll be superseded in
four days. Who wants to perpetuate it?”
“I disagree with you, Dormer, I really do. Here we are at the great
crisis of our lives, of the life of European Civilization perhaps. Some
trumpery order you or I transmit may mean in reality ‘Civilization is
defeated, Barbarism has won!’ or it may mean, I hope, ‘Lift up your
eyes unto the hills from whence——’”
“I wish you wouldn’t joke about the Bible!”
“I’m not joking, and you’ll find it out before long. Men will fight so long
as they’ve got something to fight about!”
“Well, they have. They want to get home. They’ll fight fast enough
about that.”
“Not they. That isn’t the thing to make ’em fight. It’s more likely to
make ’em run away. They want an idea.”
“They’ve had enough ideas, I should think. I seem to remember the
walls covered with posters, with an idea a-piece.”
“Those ideas were much too superficial and temporary. They want to
feel that they are something, or that they do something so important
that it doesn’t matter whether they live or die!”
“That’s all wrong. It does matter. This War will be won by the side
that has most men and most stuff left.”
“Nonsense. It will be won by the side that has the most faith.”
“Oh, well, you go and have faith in your cable line. I’ve got to have it
in these working parties.”
It was now dusk enough for the main body of troops to get on the
move. The broad valley below was in ultramarine shadow, the round
shoulders of the down touched with lemon-coloured afterglow. Up
the drift of chalk dust that represented where the road had once
been, an insignificant parish road from one little village to another,
but now the main traffic artery of an Army Corps, there came pouring
the ceaseless stream, men, men, men, limbers, men, mules, guns,
men.
The longer he looked at them, the more certain he became that he
was right. Not merely the specialists in mechanics, engineers,
ordnance, signals, gunners, but the mere infantry had taken months
to train, and could be knocked out in a moment. The problem, of
course, was to save them up until the moment at which they could
produce the maximum effect.
How docile they were. Platoon for this, platoon for that, section of
engineers, then a machine-gun company. Then rations, then limbers,
wagons, hand-carts full of every conceivable kind of implement or
material. Very soon he was obliged to stand in the middle of the
road, with the stream of traffic going up, before him, and the stream
of traffic coming back, behind, so that in addition to checking and
directing one lot he had to keep an eye on the other to see that they
did not begin to smoke until they were well down the side of the hill.
Gradually the darkness thickened, and the crowd thinned, and the
thunder of the front died down. At length he was left with only a
belated hurrying limber or two, or ambulance, sent back for the third
or fourth time to clear the accumulation of casualties. At last he felt
justified in getting into his bunk and shutting his eyes.
Thank goodness that fellow wasn’t back. He, Dormer, would be
asleep, and would not hear him. He counted the khaki shoulders and
dusty wheels that went round and round beneath his eyelids, until he
went off.
Unfortunately for that particular malaise which the War occasioned to
his precise and town-bred spirit, that was not his last sleep that he
slept that night. Many a one never woke again to hear the earth-
shaking clamour of the barrage, to see that eternal procession of
men, men, mules, limbers, men, guns, ambulances, men, lorries,
going on and on like some gigantic frieze. But Dormer did. He was
one of those who, had he been born in the Middle Ages, would have
been described as under a curse, or pictured as working out an
atonement for his own or some one else’s misdeeds. He had to go
on doing his very best, and the more he disliked the whole business
the harder he worked. The harder he worked the longer it seemed to
that desired day when he might return to the quiet niceties of a
branch bank in a provincial town. And all the time Kavanagh kept up
that ceaseless argument as to one’s mental attitude. Dormer didn’t
really believe in having such a thing, for he felt bound to join issue
with the absurd ramblings of the other, and he could not escape,
because their jobs naturally threw them together and because he
secretly admired the way that Kavanagh did his work.
So the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, the
casualty lists grew longer and longer, the visible fruits of the
immense effort grew smaller and smaller, and as the year wore on,
the weather broke, and the only conditions that make life in the open
tolerable, light and drought, disappeared, and they dwelt in the
sodden twilight of tent or hut, while what had been the white powdery
dust, became the cement-like mud that no scraping could remove.
Sitting dejectedly over some returns he heard
“Still, be still, my soul, the arms you bear are brittle!”
“It’s all very well to sit there and sing. This offensive is a failure, we
shall never get through.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, Dormer. I told you how it would be. I hope we
shall learn the lesson.”
“It means another winter in the trenches.”
“Evidently.”
“It’s very bad for the men. They’ve nothing to show for all that’s been
done.”
“That’s nothing new.
“‘I’m sick of parading,
Through cold and wet wading,
Or standing all day to be shot in a trench!
I’m tired of marching,
Pipe-claying and starching,
How neat we must be to be shot by the French.’
That’s what the men thought of it a hundred years ago. Then, they
had to pipeclay their belts, two whacking great chest-constricting
cross-belts. And their officers didn’t arrange for them to play football,
every time they went out to rest. In fact they didn’t go out to rest.
They just stayed in the line.”
“It wasn’t very dangerous, was it?”
“There wasn’t the shell-fire, of course, but what about disease?”
“They were regulars.”
“My dear fellow, when is a soldier not a soldier?”
“I don’t like riddles.”
“This is a serious question. How long will the War last?”
“Oh,” cried Dormer bitterly, “another two years, I suppose.”
“You’re about twenty wrong. We shall have conscription shortly, then
the real strength will be put into the fight and will compensate for the
losses of France and the inertia of Russia. We shall then settle down
to the real struggle between England and Germany for the markets
of the world.”
Dormer frowned. “You’re a Socialist,” he said.
“Never mind my opinions. It won’t matter by the time we get back
into civvys what we are!”
Something rose up in Dormer. He said with certainty:
“You’re wrong. The men’ll never stand it. Two years at most.”
“The men stood it very well in the Peninsular for six years, and most
of them had been fighting somewhere or other for the previous
quarter of a century.”
“Once again, they were regulars.”
“Once again, so are you.
“‘For gold the sailor ploughs the main,
The farmer ploughs the manor,
The brave poor soldier ne’er disdain,
That keeps his country’s honour!’
That’s you to the life, Dormer. Twenty years hence you’ll be a
bronzed veteran, in a dirty uniform, with a quarter of a century’s
polish on your Sam Browne. You have already had more iron whizz
past your head than any regular soldier gets in a lifetime, or even the
lifetime of two or three generations. You’ve had a practical
experience of war that any general might envy. The only complaint I
have to make against you is that you’re conducting the whole
business as if you were back in your beastly bank, instead of, as the
song says, behaving as one ‘That keeps his country’s honour!’”
“That’s all nonsense. I’ve just sent the 561 Brigade to occupy the
new line that was taken up after the stunt last Thursday. You know
what it’s like. It’s the remains of a German trench turned round, so
that they have all the observation. They’ve strafed it to Hell, and we
are firing on photographs of trenches that are probably empty. It’s all
nonsense to say the defending side loses more men than the
attacking. That’s true while the attack is in progress, but an attack in
its very nature cannot last long, and then the defenders get their own
back.”
As he said the words they were enveloped in an explosion that
shook the wet out of the canvas upon them, and whose aftermath of
falling débris was echoed by stampeded traffic in the road.
“The Bosche seem set on proving you right,” laughed Kavanagh.
“They forget, as you do, that, sooner or later, an attack gets through
and ends the War.”
“Not this one. Nothing but no more reserves will end this. And that
may happen to both sides at once. It may all end in stalemate!”
“If it does, we shall fight again. We represent Right. The enemy
represents Wrong. Don’t you ever forget that for a moment.”
“I don’t. I believe we are in the right, or I should never have joined
up.” When really moved, there came into Dormer’s grey inexpressive
face a queer light, that might have made the Germans pause, had
they seen it. He was a man of few theories, but he was literally ready
to die for those few, when they were attacked. He went on shyly:
“But I don’t believe in war as a permanent means of settling
‘disputes.’”
“Bravo!” cried Kavanagh. “I like you when you speak out. I only wish
you did more of it. You’re quite right, but what you don’t see is that
modern society is so rotten that it can only be kept alive by violent
purges, credit cycles, strikes, and wars. If it were not for such drastic
remedies people of the twentieth century would perish of ease and
comfort.”
“Come, ease and comfort never killed anyone.”
“Spiritually!”
“Oh, I don’t go in for spiritualism!” Dormer was saying, when his
servant brought him his tea. There was bread, that had rolled on the
floor of a lorry until it tasted of dust, oil, blood, and coal. There was
butter. There was marmalade. There was some cake they had sent
him from home. Leaning his elbows on the board on which they
wrote, he held his enamel mug in both hands and swilled his
chlorinated-water, condensed-milk tasting tea. For the first time, as
he clasped the mug and filled his gullet he was warm, hands, mouth,
neck, stomach, gradually all his being. He put the mug down nearly
empty and shoved the cake over to Kavanagh. “Have some?” he
mumbled.