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Brock called the fear of properly functioning in linear time, “ergophobia.”
The magazine takes on “ergophobia” as a leitmotif, spoofing one officer who
cannot think of a useful hobby and begins to have nightmares about his in-
ability to occupy himself, and scolding patients who do not submit writing to
the magazine as sufferers of “hydra-phobia.”
In homage to and mockery of Dr. Brock’s goals of adherence to linear time,
Owen’s August 18, 1917 editorial recounts the misadventures of “Private
Time,” condemned by “Colonel Eternity” to Eternal Field Punishment for “re-
fusing to stand still on parade.”^47 The soldier is ordered to “Mark Time.”
Though “Marking Time” is a military command requiring that the soldier lift
each foot six inches off the ground without moving forward, here it stands in
evocatively for shell shock—the patients are unable to move forward in time
and are thus mentally marching in place. For officers like Owen, trained in
classical and English verse writing, “marking time” would also be familiar as a
method for scanning classical quantitative verse (dividing it into “feet”). Like
Owen working out his metrical feet in lines of verse while recovering from
trauma in the hospital, the character of Private Time is compelled to “mark
time” strapped to the earth on eternal march. He eventually grows weary, but
a policeman, aptly named “Private Watch,” is hired to make sure “Private
Time” does not “stand still.” Of course, the officer’s body is never moving for-
ward because it is the earth that moves beneath his feet; “marking time” is
merely “putting down the feet” without making progress, as arbitrary as any
order. Metrical exercises are made arbitrary, just like precise military footwork
that, in this instance, prevents the soldier from moving forward. Both Private
Time and the policeman grow weary after so much work: “It was, and is, called
‘the Small Hours,’ and is open from 1:30am to 4:30am.” Private Watch steals
into these hours and “Time, in his absence, stands still, and has a rest. And hence
arise many of our troubles” (emphasis Owen’s). Owen’s piece ends:
But a way has been found. Knights of the Bedchamber, your vigils are
at an end! Not long ago a magazine called The Hydra came into being.
Its main idea was to contain things written while the policeman was in
“The Small Hours.” Then others started to read what had been written,
and immediately fell asleep. Forgotten were the maladies, even to the
very worst, which, in our opinion, is Hydra-phobia. When men lay out
a golf-course, buy a pipe, or engage a cook, they do so with a purpose.
When men start a magazine they do so because — because — we offer
a “ticket” for the answer. (7)The stammer of “because — because” could show the writer’s doubt as to what
the true purpose of The Hydra is, but, referring to the paper on which the
magazine is printed, the “ticket” of writing and reading is seen as a way out of
malady. In the magazine, writing is considered part of the cure—both because