Born . . . . . . . Yes.Height . . . . . . 17 hands.Hair . . . . . . . Bay.Eyes . . . . . . . Two.Nose . . . . . . . Undulating.Moustache . . . . Hogged.Complexion . . . . Natural.Special Marks . .
The Skipper pointed to the blank space. "That's what I want to know—special marks. Got any? Snip, blaze, white fetlock, anything?"
"Yessir," said I. "Strawberry patch on off gaskin."
He sucked thoughtfully at his fountain-pen. "Mmph," he said, "shouldn't mention it if I were you. Don't want to have to undress in the middle of the street every time you meet an Intelligence, do you?" I agreed that I did not—not before June, anyhow. The Skipper turned to the card again and frowned.
"Couldn't call it a speaking likeness exactly, this little pen-picture of you, could one? If you only had a photograph of yourself now."
"I have, Sir," said I brightly.
"Good Lord, man, why didn't you say so before? Here, take this and paste the thing in. Now trot away."
I trotted away and pasted Valpré'sobjet d'arton to the card.
Yesterday evening Albert Edward and I were riding out of a certain Italian town (no names, no pack drill). Albert Edward got involved in a right-of-way argument between five bullock wagons and two lorries, and I jogged on ahead. On the fringe of the town was a barrier presided over by a brace of Carabinieri caparisoned with war material, whiskers and cocked hats of the style popularised by Bonaparte. Also an officer. As I moved to pass the barrier the officer spied me and, not liking my looks (as I hinted before, nobody does), signed to me to halt. Had I an identification card, please? I had and handed it to him. He took the card and ran a keen eye over the Skipper's little pen-picture and Valpré's "Portrait Study," then over their alleged original. "Lieutenant," said he grimly, "these don't tally. This is not you."
I protested that it was. He shook his head with great conviction, "Never! The nose in this photograph is straight; the ears retiring; the jaw, normal. While with you—— [Continental politeness restrained him]. Lieutenant, you must come with me."
He beckoned to a Napoleonic corporal, who approached, clanking his war material. I saw myself posed for a firing squad at grey dawn and shivered all over. I detest early rising.
By this time the corporal had outflanked me, clanking more munitions, and I was on the point of being marched off to the Bastille, or whatever they call it, when Albert Edward suddenly insinuated himself into the party and addressed himself to the officer. "Half a minute, Mongsewer [any foreigner is Mongsewer to Albert Edward]. The photograph is of him all right, but it was taken before his accident."
"His accident?" queried the officer.
"Yes," said Albert Edward; "sad affair, shell-shock. A crump burst almost in his face, and shocked it all out of shape. Can't you see?"
The Italian leaned forward and subjected my flushed features to a piercing scrutiny; then his dark eyes softened almost to tears, and he handed me back my card and saluted.
"Sir, you have my apologies—and sympathy. Good evening."
"Albert Edward," said I, as we trotted into the dusk, "you may be a true friend but you are no gentleman."
Lionel Trelawney Molyneux-Molyneux was of the race of the Beaux. Had he flourished in the elegant days, Nash would have taken snuff with him, D'Orsay wine—no less. As it was, the high priests of Savile Row made obeisance before him, the staff of theTailor and Cutterpenned leaders on his waistcoats, and the lilies of the field whined "Kamerad" and withered away.
When war broke out Lionel Trelawney issued from his comfortable chambers in St. James's and took a hand in it. He had no enthusiasm for blood-letting. War, he maintained from the first, was a vulgar pastime, a comfortless revolting state of affairs which bored one stiff, forced one to associate with all sorts of impossible people and ruined one's clothes. Nevertheless the West-end had to be saved from an invasion of elastic-sided boots, celluloid dickeys, Tyrolese hats and musical soup-swallowing. That washiswar-aim.
Through the influence of an aunt at the War Office he obtained a commission at once, and after a month's joining-leave (spent closeted with his tailor) he appeared, a shining figure, in the Mess of the Loamshire Light Infantry and with them adventured to Gallipoli. It is related that during the hell of that first landing, when boats were capsizing, wounded men being dragged under by tentacles of barbed wire, machine-guns whipping the sea to bloody froth, Lionel Trelawney was observed standing on a prominent part of a barge, his eye-glass fixed on his immaculate field boots, petulantly remarking, "And now, damn it, I suppose I've got to get wet!"
After the evacuation the battalion went to France, but not even the slush of the salient or the ooze of Festubert could dim his splendour. Whenever he got a chance he sat down, cat-like, and licked himself. Wherever he went his batman went also, hauling a sackful of cleaning gear and changes of raiment. On one occasion, hastening to catch the leave train, he spurred his charger into La Bassée Canal. He emerged, like some river deity, profusely decorated in chick-weed, his eyeglass still in his eye ("Came up like a blinking U-boat," said a spectator, "periscope first"), footed it back to billets and changed, though it cost him two days of his leave.
He was neither a good nor a keen officer. He was not frightened—he had too great a contempt for war to admit the terror of it—but he gloomed and brooded eternally and made no effort to throw the faintest enthusiasm into his job. Yet for all that the Loamshires suffered him. He had his uses—he kept the men amused. In that tense time just before an attack, when the minute hand was jerking nearer and nearer to zero, when nerves were strung tight and people were sending anxious inquiries after Lewis guns, S.A.A., stretchers, bombs, etc., Lionel Trelawney would say to his batman, "Have you got the boot and brass polish, the Blanco, the brushes? Sure?" (a sigh of relief). "Very well, now we'll be getting on," and so would send his lads scrambling over the parapet grinning from east to west.
"Where's ole Collar and Cuffs?" some muddy warrior would shout after a shrieking tornado of shell had swept over them. "Dahn a shell-hole cleanin' his teef," would come the answer, and the battered platoon chuckled merrily. "'E's a card, 'e is," said his Sergeant admiringly. "Marched four miles back to billets in 'is gas-mask, perishin' 'ot, all because he'd lost 'is razor an' 'adn't shaved for two days. 'E's a nut 'e is and no error."
It happened that the Loamshires were given a job of crossing Mr. Hindenburg's well-known ditch and taking a village on the other side. A company of tanks, which came rolling out of the dawn-drizzle, spitting fire from every crack, put seven sorts of wind up the Landsturmer gentlemen in possession; and the Loamshires, getting their first objectives with very light casualties, trotted on for their second in high fettle, sterns up and wagging proudly. The tanks went through the village knocking chips off the architecture and pushing over houses that got in the way; and the Loamshires followed after, distributing bombs among the cellars.
The consolidation was proceeding when Lionel Trelawney sauntered on the scene, picking his way delicately through the débris of the main street. He lounged up to a group of Loamshire officers, yawned, told them how tired he was, cursed the drizzle for dimming his buttons and strolled over to a dug-out with the object of sheltering there. He got no further than the entrance, for as he reached it a wide-eyed German came scrambling up the steps and collided with him, bows on. For a full second the two stood chest to chest gaping, too surprised to move. Then the Hun turned and bolted. But this time Lionel Trelawney was not too bored to act. He drew his revolver and rushed after him like one possessed, firing wildly. Two shots emptied a puddle, one burst a sandbag, one winged a weather-cock and one went just anywhere. His empty revolver caught the flying Hun in the small of the back as he vaulted over a wall; and Lionel Trelawney vaulted after him.
"Molly's gone mad," shouted his amazed brother-officers as they scrambled up a ruin for a better view of the hunt. The chase was proceeding full-cry among the small gardens of the main street. It was a stirring spectacle. The Hun was sprinting for dear life, Lionel Trelawney hard on his brush, yelping like a frenzied fox-terrier. They plunged across tangled beds, crashed through crazy fences, fell head over heels, picked themselves up again and raced on, wheezing like punctured bagpipes.
Heads of Atkinses poked up everywhere. "S'welp me if it ain't ole Collar and Cuffs! Go it, Sir, that's the stuff to give 'em!" A Yorkshireman opened a book and started to chant the odds, but nobody paid any attention to him. The Hun, badly blown, dodged inside a shattered hen-house. Lionel Trelawney tore up handfuls of a ruined wall and bombed him out of it with showers of brickbats. Away went the chase again, cheered by shrill yoicks and cat-calls from the spectators.
Suddenly there was an upheaval of planks and brick-dust, and both runners disappeared.
"Gone to ground, down a cellar," exclaimed the brother-officers. "Oh, look! Fritz is crawling out."
The white terrified face of the German appeared on the ground level, then with a wriggle (accompanied by a loud noise of rending material) he dragged his body up and was on his way once more. A second later Lionel Trelawney was up as well, waving a patch of grey cloth in his hand. "Molly's ripped the seat out of his pants," shouted the grand-stand. "Yow, tear 'm, Pup!" "Good ole Collar and Cuffs!" chorused the Loamshire Atkinses.
Lionel Trelawney responded nobly; he gained one yard, two yards, five, ten. The Hun floundered into a row of raspberry canes, tripped and wallowed in the mould. Trelawney fell on him like a Scot on a three-penny bit and they rolled out of sight locked in each other's embrace.
The Loamshires jumped down from their crazy perches and doubled to see the finish, guided by the growlings, grunts, crashing of raspberry canes and jets of garden mould flung sky-high. They were too late, however. They met the victor propelling the remains of the vanquished up a lane towards them. His fawn breeches were black with mould, his shapely tunic shredded to ribbons; his sleek hair looked like a bird's-nest; his nose listed to starboard; one eye bulged like a shuttered bow-window; his eye-glass was not. But the amazing thing about it was that he didn't seem to mind; he beamed, in fact, and with a cheery shout to his friends—"Merry little scamper—eh, what?"—he drop-kicked his souvenir a few yards further on, exclaiming, "That'll teach you to slop soup over my shirt-front, you rude fellow!"
"Soup over your shirt-front!" babbled the Loamshires. "What are you talking about?"
"Talking about?" said Lionel Trelawney. "Why, this arch-ruffian used to be a waiter at Claritz's, and he shed mulligatawny all over my glad-rags one night three years ago—aggravated me fearfully."
A generous foe, the soul of chivalry, I am always ready to admit that the Boche has many good points. For instance, he is—er—er—oh, well, I can't think of any particular good point just for the moment. On the other hand, it must be admitted that he has his bad ones also, and one of these is that he cannot stand success; he is the world's worst winner.
Never does he pull off one of these "victorious retreats" of his but he needs must spoil the effect by leaving behind all sorts of puerile booby traps, butter-slides, etc., for the annoyance of the on-sweeping vanquished, displaying a state of mind which is usually slippered out of one at a dame school.
Most of his practical jokes are of the fifth of November order and detonate by means of a neat arrangement of springs, wire and acid contained in a small metal cylinder.
You open a door and the attached house blows away all round it, leaving the door in your damaged hand. You step on a duckboard; something goes bang! and the duckboard ups and hits you for a boundary to leg—and so on, all kinds of diversions.
Of course you don't really open doors and prance on duckboards; that's only what he (Jerry) in his simple faith imagines you will do. In reality you revive memories of the days when as a small boy you tied trip-strings in dark passages and balanced water-jugs on door-tops; and all the Boche's elementary parlour-tricks immediately become revealed unto you.
Not long ago the Hun, thirsting for yet more imperishable laurels, made a sudden masterly manoeuvre towards the East. Our amateur Staff instantly fell into the trap, and when battle joined again we found we had been lured twenty miles nearer Germany.
The Hun had not left things very comfortable for us; most of the cover had been blown up, and there was the usual generous provision of booby traps lying about dumbly pleading to be touched off. However, we sheltered in odd holes and corners, scrounged about for what we could "souvenir" and made ourselves as snug as possible.
It was while riding out alone on one of these souveniring expeditions that our William came upon a chaff-cutter standing in what had once been the stable yard of what had once been a château. Now to a mounted unit a chaff-cutter is a thing of incredible value. It is to us what a mincing-machine is to the frugal housewife.
Our own cutter was with the baggage, miles away in the rear, and likely to remain there.
William slipped off his horse and approached the thing gingerly. It was a Boche engine, evidently quite new and in excellent trim. This was altogether too good to be true; there must be a catch somewhere. William withdrew twenty yards and hurled a brick at it—two, three, four bricks. Nothing happened. He approached again and tying one end of a wrecked telephone wire to it, retired behind a heap of rubble and tugged.
The chaff-cutter rocked to and fro and finally fell over on its side without anything untoward occurring. William, wiping beads from his brow, came out of cover. There was no catch in it after all. It was a perfectly genuine bit of treasure-trove. The Skipper would pat his curly head, say "Good boy," and exalt him above all the other subalterns.Bon—verybon!
But how to get it home? For you cannot carry full-grown chaff-cutters about in your breeches pockets. For one thing it spoils the set of your pants. He must get a limber. Yes, but how?
The country was quick with other cavalrymen all in the souvenir business. If he left the chaff-cutter in order to fetch a limber, one of them would be sure to snap it up. On the other hand, if he waited for a limber to come trotting up of its own sweet will he might conceivably wait for the rest of the War. Limbers (G.S. Mule) are not fairy coaches.
Our William was up against it. He plunged his hands into his tunic-pockets and commenced to stride up and down, thinking to the best of his ability.
In pocketing his right hand he encountered some hard object. On drawing the object forth he discovered it to be his mother's gift. William's mother, under the impression that her son spends most of his time lying wounded and starving out in No-man's land, keeps him liberally supplied with tabloid meals to sustain him on these occasions—herds of bison corralled into one lozenge, the juice of myriad kine concentrated in a single capsule. This particular gift was of peppermints (warranted to assuage thirst for weeks on end). But it was not the peppermints that engaged William's young fancy; it was the container, small, metal, cylindrical.
His inspiration took fire. He set the tin under the chaff-cutter, chopped off a yard of telephone wire, buried one end in peppermints, twisted the other about the leg of the cutter, mounted his horse and rode for dear life.
When he returned with the limber an hour later, he found three cavalrymen, two horse-gunners and a transporteer grouped at a respectful radius round the chaff-cutter, daring each other to jerk the wire.
When William stepped boldly forward and jerked the wire they all flung themselves to earth and covered their heads. When nothing happened and he coolly proceeded to load the cutter on the limber they all sat up again and took notice.
When he picked up the tin and offered them some peppermints they mounted their horses and rode away.
I can readily believe that war as performed by Messieurs our ancestors was quite good fun. You dressed up in feathers and hardware—like something between an Indian game-cock and a tank—and caracoled about the country on a cart-horse, kissing your hand to balconies and making very liberal expenses out of any fat (and unarmed) burgesses that happened along.
With the first frost you went into winter quarters—i.e. you turned into the most convenient castle and whiled away the dark months roasting chestnuts at a log fire, entertaining the ladies with quips, conundrums and selections on the harpsichord and vying with the jester in the composition of Limericks.
The profession of arms in those spacious days was both pleasant and profitable. Nowadays it is neither; it is a drearymélangeof mud, blood, boredom and blue-funk (I speak for myself).
Yet even it, miserable calamity that it is (or was), has produced its piquant situations, its high moments; and one manages to squeeze a sly smile out of it all, here and there, now and again.
I have heard the skirl of the Argyll and Sutherland battle-pipes in the Borghese Gardens and seen a Highlander dance the sword-dance before applauding Rome. I have seen the love-locks of a matinée idol being trimmed with horse-clippers (weep, O ye flappers of Suburbia!) and a Royal Academician set to whitewash a pig-sty. I have seen American aviators in spurs, Royal Marines a-horse, and a free-born Australian eating rabbit. All these things have I seen.
And of high moments I have experienced plenty of late, for it has been my happy lot to be in the front of the hunt that has swept the unspeakable Boche back off a broad strip of France and Belgium, and the memory of the welcome accorded to us, the first British, by the liberated inhabitants will remain with us until the last "Lights Out." The procedure was practically the same throughout.
There would come a crackle of wild rifle-fire from the front of a village; then, as we worked round to the flank, a dozen or so blue-cloaked Uhlans would scamper out of the rear and disappear at a non-stop gallop for home. In a second the street would be full of people, emptying out of houses and cellars, pressing about us, shaking hands, kissing us and our horses even, smothering us with flowers, cheering "Vivent les Anglais!", "Vive la France!" clamouring, laughing, crying, mad with joy.
Grandmèreswould appear at attic windows waving calico tricolours (hidden for four long years) while others plastered up tricolour hand-bills—"Hommage à nos Liberateurs," "God's blessing unto Tommy."
However, touching and delightful though it all might be, it was not getting on with the war; thisembarras des amiswas saving the Uhlans' hide.
Furthermore, though I can bring myself to bear with a certain amount of embracing from attractive young things, I do not enjoy the salutations of unshorn old men; and when Mayors and Corporations got busy my native modesty rebelled, and I would tear myself loose and, with my steed decorated from ears to croup with flowers, so that I looked more like a perambulating hot-house than a poor soldier-man, take up the pursuit once more.
In due course we came to the considerable town of X. All happened as before. As we popped in at one flank the bold Uhlan popped out at the other, and the townsfolk flooded the streets. I was dragged out of the saddle, kissed, pump-handled and cheered while my bewildered charger was led aside and festooned with pink roses. Tricolours appeared at every window; handbills of welcome were distributed broadcast. The Mayor and Corporation arrived at the double, and we struggled together for some moments while they rasped me with their stubbly beards. When the first ecstasies had somewhat abated I gathered my troop and prepared to move again.
"Whither away?" the Mayor enquired, a fine old veteran he, wearing two 1870 medals and the ribbon of the Legion.
"To Z.," said I.
"Ecoutez, donc," he warned. "They are waiting for you there in force, machine-guns and cannon."
I intimated that nevertheless I must go and have a look-see, at any rate, and so rode out of town, the vast crowd accompanying us to the outskirts, cheering, shouting advice, warnings and blessings. In sight of Z. we shed our floral tributes and, debouching off the highway into the open, worked forwards on the look-out for trouble.
It came. A dozen pip-squeaks shrilled overhead to cause considerable casualties among some neighbouring cabbages, and shortly afterwards rifle-fire opened from outlying cottages. I swung round and tried for an opening to the north, but a couple of machine-guns promptly gave tongue on that flank. Another flock of pip-squeaks kicked up the mould in front of us and some fresh rifles and machine-guns joined in. Too hot altogether.
I was just deciding to give it best and cut for cover when all hostile fire suddenly switched off, and a few minutes later I beheld light guns on lorries, machine-guns in motor-cars and Uhlans on horses stampeding out of the village by all roads east.
The day was mine. Yip, Yip! Bonza! Skoo-kum! Hurroosh! Nevertheless I was properly bewildered, for it was absurd to suppose that an overwhelming force of heavily-armed Huns could have been bluffed out of a strong position by the merest handful of unsupported cavalry. Manifestly absurd!
I turned about, and in so doing my eye lit on the poplar-lined highway from X., and I understood. Along the road poured the hordes of an advancing army, advancing in somewhat irregular column of route, with banners flying. The head of the column was not a mile distant. The Infantry must be on my heels, thought I. Stout marching! I grabbed up my glasses, took a long look and bellowed with laughter. It was not the Infantry at all; it was the liberated population of X., headed by the Mayor and Corporation, come out to see the fun, thegrandmèresandgrandpères, the girls and boys, the dogs and babies, marching, hobbling, skipping, toddling down the pave, waving their calico tricolours and singing theMarseillaise. I thought of the Boche fleeing eastward with the fear of God in his soul, and rolled about in my saddle drunk with joy.