RATIONS
“Bully-beefan’ ’ard-tack,” said Private Boddy disgustedly. “Bully-beef that’s canned dog or ’orse, or may be cats, an’ biscuits that’sfitfor dawgs.... This is a ’ell of a war. W’y did I ever leave little old Walkerville, w’ere the whiskey comes from? Me an’ ’Iram we was almost pals, as you may say. I worked a ’ole fortnight in ’is place, at $1.75 per, an’ then I——” Mr. Boddy broke off abruptly, but not soon enough.
“Huh!” broke in a disgusted voice from a remote corner of the dug-out, “then I guess you went bummin’ your way till the bulls got you in Windsor. To hear you talk a chap would think you didn’t know what pan-handlin’ was, or going out on the stem.”
“Look ’ere,” said Boddy with heat, “you comeralong outside, you great long rubberneck, you, an’ I’ll teach you to call me a pan-’andler, I will. You low-life Chicagobum, wot neverdid’ave a better meal than you could steal f’m a Chink Chop Suey.”
“Say, fellers,” a quiet voice interposed, “cut it out. This ain’t a Parliament Buildings nor a Montreal cabaret. There’s a war on. If youse guys wants to talk about rations, then go ahead, shoot, but cut out the rough stuff!”
“Dat’s whatIsay, Corporal,” interrupted a French-Canadian. “I’m a funny sort of a guy, I am. I likes to hear a good spiel, widout any of dis here free cussin’ an’ argumentation. Dat ain’t no good, fer it don’t cut no ice,no’ d’un ch’en!”
“Talkin’ of rations,” drawled a Western voice, “when I was up to Calgary in ’08, an’ was done gone busted, save for two bits, I tuk a flop in one of them houses at 15 cents per, an’ bot a cow’s heel with the dime. You kin b’lieve me or you needn’t, but Itellyou a can of that bully you’re shootin’ off about would ha’ seemed mighty good tome, right then, an’ it aren’t so dusty naow.”
Private Boddy snorted his contempt. “An’ the jam they gives you,” he said, “w’y at ’ome you couldn’tgiveit away! Plum an’happle! Or wot they call plain happle! It ain’t never seed a plum, bar the stone, nor a happle, bar the core. It’s just colourin’ mixed up wiv boiled down turnups, that’s what it is.”
“De bread’s all right, anyways,” said Lamontagne, “but dey don’t never git you more’n a slice a man! An dat cheese. Pouff! It stink like a Fritz wot’s laid dead since de British takes Pozières.”
Scottie broke in.
“Aye, but hold yerr maunderin’. Ye canna verra weel have aught to clack aboot when ’tis the Rum ye speak of.”
“Dat’s all right,” Lamontagne responded, “de rum’s all right. But who gets it? What youse gets is one ting. A little mouthful down de brook wot don’t do no more than make you drier as you was before. What does de Sargents get? So much dey all is so rambunctious mad after a feller he dasn’t look dem in de face or dey puts him up for office! Dat’s a fine ways, dat is! An’ dem awficers! De limit, dat’s what dat is. I was up to de cook-house wid a—wid a rifle——”—“a dirty rifle too, on inspection, by Heck,” theCorporal supplemented—“wid a rifle, as I was sayin’,” continued Lamontagne, with a reproachful look in the direction of his section commander, “an’ I sees wot was in de cook-house a cookin’ for de awficers” (his voice sunk to an impressive whisper). “D’ere was eeggs, wid de sunny side up, an’ dere was bif-steaks all floatin’ in gravy, an’ pottitters an’beans, an’ peaches an’ peyers.”
“Quit yer fool gabbin’,” said Chicago. “H’aint you got no sense in that mutt-head o’ yourn? That’s food them ginksBUYS!”
Boddy had been silent so long he could bear it no longer.
“’Ave a ’eart,” he said, “it gives me a pain ter fink of all that food the horficers heats. Pure ’oggery, I calls it. An’ ter fink of th’ little bit o’ bread an’ biscuit an’ bacon—wot’s all fat—wot we fellers gets to eat.Wedoes the work, an’ the horficers sits in easy chairs an’ Heats!! Ohw’ydid I join the Harmy?”
At this moment, Private Graham, who had been slumbering peacefully until Lamontagne, in his excitement, put a foot in the midst of his anatomy, added his quota to the discussion.Private Graham wore the King and Queen’s South African medal and also the Somaliland. Before drink reduced him, he had been a company Q.M.S. in a crack regiment. His words were usually respected. “Strike me pink if you Saturday night soldiers don’t give me the guts-ache,” he remarked with some acerbity. “In Afriky you’d ha’ bin dead an’ buried months ago, judgin’ by the way you talks! There it was march, march, march, an’ no fallin’ out. Little water, a ’an’ful o’ flour, an’ a tin of bully wot was fly-blowed two minutes after you opened it, unless you ’ad eat it a’ready. An’ you talks about food! S’elp me if it ain’t a crime. Rations! W’y, never in the ’ole ’istory of the world ’as a Army bin better fed nor we are. You young soldiers sh’d learn a thing or two afore you starts talkin’ abaht yer elders an’ betters. Lord, in th’ old days a hofficers’ mess was somethin’ to dream abaht. Nowadays they can’t ’old a candle to it. Wot d’yer expec’? D’yer think a horficer is goin’ to deny ’is stummick if ’e can buy food ter put in it? ’E ain’t so blame stark starin’ mad as all that. You makes me sick, you do!”
“Dat’s whatIsay,” commented Lamontagne!
From afar came a voice crying, “Turn out for your rations.”
In thirty seconds the dug-out was empty!