I am living at present in one of those villages in which the retreating Hun has left no stone unturned. With characteristic thoroughness he fired it first, then blew it up, and has been shelling it ever since. What with one thing and another, it is in an advanced state of dilapidation; in fact, if it were not that one has the map's word for it, and a notice perched on a heap of brick-dust saying that the Town Major may be found within, the casual wayfarer might imagine himself in the Sahara, Kalahari, or the south end of Kingsway.
Some of these French towns are very difficult to recognise as such; only the trained detective can do it. A certain Irish regiment was presented with the job of capturing one. The scheme was roughly this. They were to climb the parapet at 5.25 a.m. and rush a quarry some one hundred yards distant. After half an hour's breather they were to go on to some machine-gun emplacements, dispose of these, wait a further twenty minutes, and then take the town. Distance barely one thousand yards in all. Promptly at zero the whole field spilled over the bags, as the field spills over the big double at Punchestown, paused at the quarry only long enough to change feet on the top, and charged yelling at the machine-guns. Then being still full of fun andjoie de vivre, and having no officers left to hamper their fine flowing style, they ducked through their own barrage and raced all out for the final objective. Twenty minutes later, two miles further on, one perspiring private turned to his panting chum, "For the love of God, Mike, aren't we getting in the near of this damn town yet?"
I have a vast respect for Hindenburg (a man who can drink the mixtures he does, and still sit up and smile sunnily into the jaws of a camera ten times a day, is worthy of anybody's veneration), but if he thought that by blowing these poor little French villages into small smithereens he would deprive the B.E.F. of head-cover and cause it to catch cold and trot home to mother, he will have to sit up late and do some more thinking. For Atkins of to-day is a knowing bird; he can make a little go the whole distance and conjure plenty out of nothingness. As for cover, two bricks and his shrapnel hat make a very passable pavilion. Goodness knows it would puzzle a guinea-pig to render itself inconspicuous in our village, yet I have watched battalion after battalion march into it and be halted and dismissed. Half an hour later there is not a soul to be seen. They have all gone to ground. My groom and countryman went in search of wherewithal to build a shelter for the horses. He saw a respectable plank sticking out of a heap of débris, laid hold on it and pulled. Then—to quote him verbatim—"there came a great roarin' from in undernath of it, Sor, an' a black divil of an infantryman shoved his head up through the bricks an' drew down sivin curses on me for pullin' the roof off his house. Then he's afther throwin' a bomb at me, Sor, so I came away. Ye wouldn't be knowin' where to put your fut down in this place, Sor, for the dhread of treadin' in the belly of an officer an' him aslape."
Some people have the bungalow mania and build them bijoux maisonettes out of biscuit tins, sacking and whatnot, but the majority go to ground. I am one of the majority; I go to ground like a badger, for experience has taught me that a dug-out—cramped, damp, dark though it may be—cannot be stolen from you while you sleep; that is to say, thieves cannot come along in the middle of the night, dig it up bodily by the roots and cart it away in a G.S. waggon without you, the occupant, being aware that some irregularity is occurring to the home. On the other hand, in this country, where the warrior, when he falls on sleep suffers a sort of temporary death, bungalows can be easily purloined from round about him without his knowledge; and what is more, frequently are.
For instance, a certain bungalow in our village was stolen as frequently as three times in one night. This was the way of it. One Todd, a foot-slogging lieutenant, foot-slogged into our midst one day, borrowed a hole from a local rabbit, and took up his residence therein. Now this mud-pushing Todd had a cousin in the same division, one of those highly trained specialists who trickle about the country shedding coils of barbed wire and calling them "dumps"—a sapper, in short. One afternoon the sapping Todd, finding some old sheets of corrugated iron that he had neglected to dump, sent them over to his gravel-grinding cousin with his love and the request of a loan of a dozen of soda. The earth-pounding Todd came out of his hole, gazed on the corrugated iron and saw visions, dreamed dreams. He handed the hole back to the rabbit and set to work to evolve a bungalow. By evening it was complete. He crawled within and went to sleep, slept like a drugged dormouse. At 10 p.m. a squadron of the Shetland ponies (for the purpose of deceiving the enemy all names in this article are entirely fictitious) made our village. It was drizzling at the time, and the Field Officer in charge was getting most of it in the neck. He howled for his batman, and told the varlet that if there wasn't a drizzle-proof bivouac ready to enfold him by the time he had put the ponies to bye-byes, there would be no leave for ten years. The batman scratched his head, then slid softly away into the night. By the time the ponies were tilting the last drops out of their nosebags the faithful servant had scratched together a few sheets of corrugated, and piled them into a rough shelter. The Major wriggled beneath it and was presently putting up a barrage of snores terrible to hear. At midnight a battalion of the Loamshire Light Infantry trudged into the village. It was raining in solid chunks, and the Colonel Commanding looked like Victoria Falls and felt like a submarine. He gave expression to his sentiments in a series of spluttering bellows. His batman trembled and faded into the darknessà pas de loup. By the time the old gentleman had halted his command and cursed them "good night" his resourceful retainer had found a sheet or two of corrugated iron somewhere and assembled them into some sort of bivouac for the reception of his lord. His lord fell inside, kicked off his boots and slept instantly, slept like a wintering bear.
At 2 a.m. three Canadian privates blundered against our village and tripped over it. They had lost their way, were mud from hoofs to horns, dead beat, soaked to the skin, chilled to the bone, fed up to the back teeth. They were not going any further, neither were they going to be deluged to death if there was any cover to be had anywhere. They nosed about, and soon discovered a few sheets of corrugated iron, bore them privily hence and weathered the night out under some logs further down the valley. My batman trod me underfoot at seven next morning. "Goin' to be blinkin' murder done in this camp presently, Sir," he announced cheerfully. "Three officers went to sleep in bivvies larst night, but somebody's souvenired 'em since, an' they're all lyin' hout in the hopen now, Sir. Their blokes daresent wake 'em an' break the noos. All very 'asty-tempered gents, so I'm told. The Colonel is pertickler mustard. There'll be some fresh faces on the Roll of Honour when 'e comes to."
I turned out and took a look at the scene of impending tragedy. The three unconscious officers on three camp beds were lying out in the middle of a sea of mud like three lone islets. Their shuddering subordinates were taking cover at long range, whispering among themselves and crouching in attitudes of dreadful expectancy like men awaiting the explosion of a mine or the cracking of Doom. As explosions of those dimensions are liable to be impartial in their attentions I took horse and rode afield. But according to my batman, who braved it out, the Lieutenant woke up first, exploded noisily and detonated the Field Officer who in turn detonated the Colonel. In the words of my batman—"They went orf one, two, three, Sir, for orl the world like a machine-gun, an eighteen-pounder and an How-pop-pop! Whizz-bang! Boom!—very 'eavy casu-alities, Sir."
Nobody out here seems exactly infatuated with the politicians nowadays. The Front Trenches have about as much use for the Front Benches as a big-game hunter for mosquitoes. The bayonet professor indicates his row of dummies and says to his lads, "Just imagine they are Cabinet Ministers—go!" and in a clock-tick the heavens are raining shreds of sacking and particles of straw. The demon bomber fancies some prominent Parliamentarian is lurking in the opposite sap, grits his teeth, and gets an extra five yards into his bowling.
But I am not entirely of the vulgar opinion. The finished politician may not be a subject for odes, but a political education is a great asset to any man. Our Mess President, William, once assisted a friend to lose a parliamentary election, and his experience has been invaluable to us. The moment we are tired of fighting and want billets, the Squadron sits down where it is and the Skipper passes the word along for William. William dusts his boots, adjusts his tie and heads for the most prepossessing farm in sight. Arrived there, he takes off his hat to the dog, pats the pig, asks the cow after the calf, salutes the farmer, curtsies to the farmeress, then turning to the inevitable baby, exclaims in the language of the country, "Mong Jew, kell jolly ongfong" (Gosh, what a topping kid!), and bending tenderly over it imprints a lingering kiss upon its india-rubber features and wins the freedom of the farm. The Mess may make use of the kitchen; the spare bed is at the Skipper's disposal; the cow will move up and make room for the First Mate; the pig will be only too happy to welcome the Subalterns to its modest abode.
Ordinary billeting officers stand no chance against our William and his political education. "That fellow," I heard one disgruntled competitor remark to him, "would hug the devil for a knob of coke." Once only did he meet his match, and a battle of Titans resulted.
In pursuit of his business he entered a certain farmhouse, to find the baby already in possession of another officer, a heavy red creature with a monocle, who was rocking the infant's cradle seventy-five revolutions per minute and making dulcet noises on a moustache comb.
William's heart fell to his field boots; he recognised the red creature's markings immediately. This was another politician; no bloodless victory would be his; fur would fly first, powder burn—Wow!
The red person must have tumbled to William as well, for he increased the revolutions to one hundred and forty per minute and broke into a shrill lullaby of his own impromptu composition:
"Go to sleep, Mummy's liddle Did-ums;Go to sleep, Daddy's liddle Thing-me-jig."
Nevertheless this did not baffle our William. He approached from a flank, deftly twitched the infant out of its cradle by the scruff of its neck, and commenced to plaster it with tender kisses. However the red man tailed it as it went past and hung on, kissing any bits he could reach. When the mother reappeared they were worrying the baby between them as a couple of hound puppies worry the hind leg of a cub. She beat them faithfully with a broom and hove both of them out into the wide wet world, and we all slept in a bog that night, and William was much abused and loathed. But that was his only failure.
If getting billets is William's job, getting rid of them is the Babe's affair. William, like myself, has far too great a mastery of the patois to handle delicate situations with success. For instance, when the farmer approaches me with tidings that my troopers have burnt two ploughshares and a crowbar, and my troop-horses have masticated a brick wall, I engage him in palaver, with the result that we eventually part, I under the impression that the incident is closed, and he under the impression that I have promised to buy him a new farm. This leads to all sorts of international complications.
The Babe, on the other hand, regards a knowledge of French as immoral and only knows enough of it to order himself a drink. He is also gifted with a slight stutter, which under the stress of a foreign language becomes chronic. So when we evacuate a billet William furnishes the Babe with enough money to compensate the farmer for all damages we have not committed, and then effaces himself. Donning a bright smile the Babe approaches the farmer and presses the lucre into his honest palm.
"Hi," says the worthy fellow, "what is this, then? One hundred francs! Where is the seventy-four francs, six centimes for the fleas your dog stole? The two hundred francs, three centimes for the indigestion your rations gave my pig? The eight thousand and ninety-nine francs, five centimes insurance money I should have collected if your brigands had not stopped my barn from burning?—and all the other little damages, three million, eight hundred thousand and forty-four francs, one centime in all—where is it, hein?"
"Ec-c-coutez une moment," the Babe begins. "Jer p-p-poovay expliquay tut—tut—tut—tut—sh-sh-shiss——" says he, loosening his stammer at rapid fire, popping and hissing, rushing and hitching like a red-hot machine-gun with a siphon attachment. In five minutes the farmer is white in the face and imploring the Babe to let bygones be bygones. "N-n-not a b-bit of it, old t-top," says the Babe. "Jer p-p-poovay exp-p-pliquay b-b-bub-bub-bub——" and away it goes again like a combined steam riveter and shower bath, like the water coming down at Lodore. No farmer however hardy has been known to stand more than twenty minutes of this. A quarter of an hour usually sees him bolting and barring himself into the cellar, with the Babe blowing him kisses of fond farewell through the key-hole.
We are billeted on a farm at the present moment.
The Skipper occupies the best bed; the rest of us are doing the al fresco touch in tents and bivouacs scattered about the surrounding landscape. We are on very intimate terms with the genial farmyard folk. Every morning I awake to find half a dozen hens and their gentleman friend roosting along my anatomy. One of the hens laid an egg in my ear this morning. William says she mistook it for her nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest bird, was merely paying rent for the roost.
The Babe turned up at breakfast this morning wearing only half a moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since—a moustache must be very ticklish to digest.
Yesterday MacTavish, while engaged in taking his tub in the open, noticed that his bath-water was mysteriously sinking lower and lower. Turning round to investigate the cause of the phenomenon he beheld a gentle milch privily sucking it up behind his back. There was a strong flavour of Coal Tar soap in thecafè au laitto-day.
This morning at dawn I was aroused by a cold foot pawing at my face. Blinking awake, I observed Albert Edward in rosy pyjamas capering beside my bed. "Show a leg, quick," he whispered. "Rouse out, and Uncle will show boysey pretty picture."
Brushing aside the coverlet of fowl, I followed him tiptoe across the dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he and MacTavish call "home."
Albert Edward lifted a flap and signed me to peep within. It was, as he had promised, a pretty picture.
At the foot of our MacTavish's mattress, under a spare blanket lifted from that warrior in his sleep, lay a large pink pig. Both were occupied in peaceful and stertorous repose.
"Heads of Angels, by Sir Joshua Reynolds," breathed Albert Edward in my ear.
All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour" of old Atkins. Every distinguished tripper who comes Cook's touring to the Front for a couple of days devotes at least a chapter of his resultant book to it. "How in thunder does Thomas do it?" they ask. "What the mischief does he find to laugh at?" Listen.
Years ago, when the well-known War was young, a great man sat in his sanctum exercising his grey matter. He said to himself, "There is a war on. Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the term of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined and bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and scared silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum diluted, reliefs late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them for diamond-studded munitioneers. Their wives will write saying, 'Little Jimmie has the mumps; and what about the rent? You aren't spending all of five bob a week on yourself, are you?' This is but a tithe (or else a tittle) of the things that will occur to them, and their sunny natures will sour and sicken if something isn't done about it."
The great man sat up all night chewing penholders and pondering on the problem. The Big Idea came with the end of the eighth penholder.
He sprang to his feet, fires of inspiration flashing from his eyes, and boomed, "Let there beFunny Cuts!"—then went to bed. Next morning he created "I." (which stands for Intelligence), carefully selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs of appropriate hue, and told them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of Hindenburg accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Boche tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will make of it. A hint is as good as a wink to them, a nudge ample. Under the genius of these imaginative artists the most trivial incident bourgeons forth into a Le Queux spell-binder, and the whole British Army, mustering about its Sergeant-Majors, gets selected cameos read to it every morning at roll-call, laughs brokenly into the jaws of dawn and continues chuckling to itself all day. Now you know.
Our Adjutant had a telephone call not long ago. "Army speaking," said a voice. "Will you send somebody over to Courcelles and see if there is a Town Major there?"
The Adjutant said he would, and a N.C.O. was despatched forthwith. He returned later, reporting no symptoms of one, so the Adjutant rang up Exchange and asked to be hooked on to Army Headquarters. "Which branch?" Exchange inquired. "Why, really I don't know—forgot to ask," the Adjutant confessed. "I'll have a try at 'A.''
"Hello," said "A." "There is no Town Major at Courcelles," said the Adjutant. "You astound me, Fair Unknown," said "A."; "but what about it, anyway?" The Adjutant apologised and asked Exchange for "Q." department, "Hello," said "Q." "There is no Town Major at Courcelles," said the Adjutant. "Sorry, old thing, whoever you are," said "Q.," "but we don't stock 'em. Rations, iron; perspirators, box; oil, whale, delivered with promptitude and civility, but not Town Majors—sorry." The Adjutant sighed and consulted with Exchange as to who possibly could have rung him up.
Exchange couldn't guess unless it was "I."—no harm in trying, anyhow.
"Hello!" said "I." "There is no Town Major at Courcelles," the Adjutant droned somewhat wearily. "Wha-t!" "I." exclaimed, suddenly interested. "Say it again, clearer." "Cour-celles—No—Town—Major," the Adjutant repeated. There was a pause; then he heard the somebody give off an awed "Good Lord!" and drop the receiver. Next morning inFunny Cuts(the organ of Intelligence) we learned that "CorpsHeadquarters was heavilyShelledlast night. The Town Major is missing. This is evidence that the enemy has brought long-range guns into the opposite sector." Followed masses of information as to the probable make of the guns, the size of shell they preferred, the life-story of the Battery Commander, his favourite flower and author.
The Boche, always on the alert to snaffle the paying devices of an opposition firm, now has his "I." staff andFunny Cutsas well. From time to time we capture a copy and read this sort of thing:
"From agonised screeches heard by one of our intrepid airmen while patrolling over the enemy's lines yesterday, it is evident that the brutal and relentless British are bayoneting their prisoners."
A Highland Division, whose star pipers were holding a dirge and lament contest on that date, are now ticking off the hours to the next offensive.
The Antrims had acordon bleuby the name of Michael O'Callagan. He was a sturdy rogue, having retreated all the way from Mons, and subsequently advanced all the way back to the Yser with a huge stock-pot on his back, from which he had furnished mysterious stews to all comers, at all hours, under any conditions. For this, and for the fact that he could cook under water, and would turn out hot meals when otherchefswere committing suicide, much was forgiven him, but he was prone to look upon thevinwhen it wasrougeand was habitually coated an inch thick with a varnish of soot and pot-black. One morning he calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of the earnest attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to collect sufficient débris to boil his dixies. Next day the BocheFunny Cutsflared forth scareheads:
"SAVAGES ON THE SOMME.
"The desperate and unprincipled British are employing black cannibal Zulus in the defence of their system. Yesterday one of them, a chief of incredibly depraved appearance, was observed scouting in the open."
The communiqué ended with a treatise on the Zulu, its black man-eating habits, and an exhortation to "our old Brandenburgers" not to be dismayed.
The Babe went to England on leave. Not that this was any new experience for him; he usually pulled it off every twelve months—influence, and that sort of thing, you know. He went down to the coast in a carriage containing seventeen other men, but he got a fat sleepy youth to sit on, and was passably comfortable. He crossed over in a wobbly boat packed from cellar to attic with Red Tabs invalided with shell shock, Blue Tabs with trench fever, and Green Tabs with brain-fag; Mechanical Transporters in spurs and stocks, jam merchants in revolvers and bowie-knives, Military Police festooned withpickelhaubes, and here and there a furtive fighting man who had got away by mistake, and would be recalled as soon as he landed.
The leave train rolled into Victoria late in the afternoon. Cab touts buzzed about the Babe, but he would have none of them; he would go afoot the better to see the sights of the village—a leisurely sentimental pilgrimage. He had not covered one hundred yards when a ducky little thing pranced up to him, squeaking, "Where are your gloves, Sir?" "I always put 'em in cold storage during summer along with my muff and boa, dear," the Babe replied pleasantly. "Moreover, my mother doesn't like me to talk to strangers in the streets, so ta-ta." The little creature blushed like a tea-rose and stamped its little hoof. "Insolence!" it squeaked. "You—you go back to France by the next boat!" and the Babe perceived to his horror that he had been witty to an Assistant Provost-Marshal! He flung himself down on his knees, licking the A.P.M.'s boots and crying in a loud voice that he would be good and never do it again.
The A.P.M. pardoned the Babe (he wanted to save the polish on his boots) on condition that he immediately purchased a pair of gloves of the official cut and hue. The Babe did so forthwith and continued on his way. He had not continued ten yards when another A.P.M. tripped him up. "That cap is a disgrace, Sir!" he barked. "I know it, Sir," the Babe admitted, "and I'm awfully sorry about it; but that hole in it only arrived last night—shrapnel, you know—and I haven't had time to buy another yet. I don't care for the style they sell in those little French shops—do you?"
The A.P.M. didn't know anything about France or its little shops, and didn't intend to investigate; at any rate not while there was a war on there. "You will return to the Front to-morrow," said he. The Babe grasped his hand from him and shook it warmly. "Thank you—thank you, Sir," he gushed; "I didn't want to come, but they made me. I'm from Fiji; have no friends here, and London is somehow so different from Suva it makes my head ache. I am broke and couldn't afford leave, anyway. Thank you, Sir—thank you."
"Ahem—in that case I will revoke my decision," said the A.P.M. "Buy yourself an officially-sanctioned cap and carry on."
The Babe bought one with alacrity; then, having tasted enough of the dangers of the streets for one afternoon, took a taxi, and, lying in the bottom, well out of sight, sped to his old hotel. When he reached his old hotel he found it had changed during his absence, and was now headquarters of the Director of Bones and Dripping. He abused the taxi-driver, who said he was sorry, but there was no telling these days; a hotel was a hotel one moment, and the next it was something entirely different. Motion pictures weren't in it, he said.
Finally they discovered a hotel which was still behaving as such, and the Babe got a room. He remained in that room all the evening, beneath the bed, having his meals pushed in to him under the door. A prowling A.P.M. sniffed at the keyhole, but did not investigate further, which was fortunate for the Babe, who had no regulation pyjamas.
Next morning, crouched on the bottom boards of another taxi, he was taken to his tailor, poured himself into the faithful fellow's hands, and only departed when guaranteed to be absolutely A.P.M.-proof. He went to the "Bolero" for lunch, ordered some oysters for a start, polished them off and bade the waiter trot up theconsommé. The waiter shook his head. "Can't be done, Sir. Subaltern gents are only allowed three and six-penceworth of food and you've already had that, Sir. If we was to serve you with a crumb more, we'd be persecuted under the Trading with the Enemy Act, Sir. There's an A.P.M. sitting in the corner this very moment, Sir, his eyeglass fixed on your every mouthful, very suspicious-like——"
"Good Lord!" said the Babe, and bolted. He bolted as far as the next restaurant, had a three-and-sixpennyentréethere, went on to another for sweets, and yet another for coffee and trimmings. These short bursts between courses kept his appetite wonderfully alive.
That afternoon he ran across a lady friend in Bond Street, "a War Toiler enormously interested in the War" (see the current number ofSocial Snaps). She had been at Yvonne's trying on her gauze for the Boccaccio Tableaux in aid of the Armenians and needed some relaxation. So she engaged the Babe for the play, to be followed by supper with herself and her civilian husband. The play (a War drama) gave the Babe a fine hunger, but the Commissionaire (apparently a Major-General) who does odd jobs outside the Blitz took exception to him. "Can't go in, Sir." "Why not?" the Babe inquired; "my friends have gone in." "Yessir, but no hofficers are allowed to obtain nourishment after 10 p.m. under Defence of the Realm Act, footnote (a) to para. 14004." He leaned forward and whispered behind his glove, "There's a Hay Pee Hem under the portico watching your movements, Sir." The Babe needed no further warning; he dived into his friend's Limousine and burrowed under the rug.
Some time later the door of the car was opened cautiously and the moon-face of the Major-General inserted itself through the crack. "Hall clear for the moment, Sir; the Hay Pee Hem 'as gorn orf dahn the street, chasin' a young hofficer in low shoes. 'Ere, tyke this; I'm a hold soldier meself." He thrust a damp banana in the Babe's hand and closed the door softly.
Next morning the Babe dug up an old suit of 1914 "civies" and put them on. A woman in the Tube called him "Cuthbert" and informed him gratuitously that her husband, twice the Babe's age, had volunteered the moment Conscription was declared and had been fighting bravely in the Army Clothing Department ever since. Further she supposed the Babe's father was in Parliament and that he was a Conscientious Objector. In Hyde Park one urchin addressed him as "Daddy" and asked him what he was doing in the Great War; another gambolled round and round him making noises like a rabbit. In Knightsbridge a Military Policeman wanted to arrest him as a deserter. The Babe hailed a taxi and, cowering on the floor, fled back to his hotel and changed into uniform again.
That night, strolling homewards in the dark, immersed in thought, he inadvertently took a pipe out of his pocket and lit it. An A.P.M. who had been sleuthing him for half a mile leapt upon him, snatched the pipe and two or three teeth out of his mouth and returned him to France by the next boat.
* * * * * * * *
His groom, beaming welcome, met him at the rail-head with the horses.
"Hello, old thing, cheerio and all the rest of it," Huntsman whinnied lovingly.
Miss Muffet rubbed her velvet muzzle against his pocket. "Brought a lump of sugar for a little girl?" she rumbled.
He mounted her and headed across country, Miss Muffet pig-jumping and capering to show what excellent spirits she enjoyed.
Two brigades of infantry were under canvas in Mud Gully, their cook fires winking like red eyes. The guards clicked to attention and slapped their butts as the Babe went by. A subaltern bobbed out of a tent and shouted to him to stop to tea. "We've got cake," he lured, but the Babe went on.
A red-hat cantered across the stubble before him waving a friendly crop, "Pip" Vibart the A.P.M. homing to H.Q. "Evening, boy!" he holloaed; "come up and Bridge to-morrow night," and swept on over the hillside. A flight of aeroplanes, like flies in the amber of sunset, droned overheaden routefor Hunland. The Babe waved his official cap at them: "Good hunting, old dears."
They had just started feeding up in the regimental lines when he arrived; the excited neighing of five hundred horses was music to his ears. His brother subalterns hailed his return with loud and exuberant noises, made disparaging remarks about the smartness of his clothes, sat on him all over the floor and rumpled him. On sighting the Babe, The O'Murphy went mad and careered round the table wriggling like an Oriental dancer, uttering shrill yelps of delight; presently he bounced out of the window, to enter some minutes later by the same route, and lay the offering of a freshly slain rat at his best beloved's feet.
At this moment the skipper came in plastered thick with the mud of the line, nodded cheerfully to his junior sub and instantaneously fell upon the buttered toast.
"Have a good time, Son?" he mumbled. "How's merrie England?"
"Oh, England's all right, Sir," said the Babe, tickling The O'Murphy's upturned tummy—"quite all right; but it's jolly to be home again among one's ain folk."
No one, with the exception of the Boche, has a higher admiration for the scrapping abilities of the Scot than I have, but in matters musical we do not hear ear to ear. It is not that I have no soul; I have. I fairly throb with it. I rise in the mornings trilling trifles of Monckton and croon myself to sleep o' nights with snatches of Novello.
I do not wish to boast, but to hear me pick the "Moonlight Sonata" out of a piano with one hand (the other strapped behind my back) is an unforgettable experience.
I would not yield to Paderewski himself on the comb, bones or Jew's harp, and I could give A. Gabriel a run for his money on the coachhorn. But these bagpipes!
It is not so much the execution of the bagpiper that I object to as his restricted repertoire. He can only play one noise. It is quite useless a Scot explaining to me that this is the "Lament of Sandy Macpherson" and that the "Dirge of Hamish MacNish"; it all sounds the same to me.
The brigade of infantry that is camped in front of my dug-out ("Mon Repos") is a Scots brigade. Not temporary Scots from the Highlands of Commissioner Street, Jo'burg, and Hastings Street, Vancouver (about whom I have nothing to say), but realpukka, law-abiding, kirk-going, God-fearing, bayonet-pushing Gaels, bred among the crags of the Grampians and reared on thistles and illicit whuskey. And every second man in this brigade is a confirmed bagpiper.
They have massed pipes for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner; pipes solos before, during, and after drinks. If one of them goes across the road to borrow a box of matches, a piper goes with him raising Cain. Their Officers' Mess is situated just behind "Mon Repos," so we live in the orchestra stalls, so to speak, and hear all there is to be heard.
One evening, while Sandy Macpherson's (or Hamish MacNish's) troubles were being very poignantly aired next door, Albert Edward came to the conclusion that the limit had been reached. "They've been killing the pig steadily for ten days and nights now," said he; "something's got to be done about it."
"I'm with you," said I; "but what are we two against a whole brigade? If they were to catch you pushing an impious pin into one of their sacred joy-bags there'd be another Second Lieutenant missing."
"Desist and let me think," said Albert Edward, and for the next hour he lay on his bed rolling and groaning—the usual signs that his so-called brain is active.
The following morning he rode over to the squadron, returning later with the Mess gramophone and a certain record. There are records and records, but for high velocity, armour-piercing and range this one bangs Banagher. It is a gem out of that "sparkling galaxy of melody, mirth and talent" (Press Agent speaking), "I Don't Think," which scintillates nightly at the Frivolity Theatre.
"When the Humming-birds are singing" is the title thereof, and Miss Birdie de Maie renders it—renders it as she alone can, in a voice like a file chafing corrugated iron.
We started the birds humming at 4 p.m., and let it rip steadily until 11.15 p.m., only stopping to change needles.
Albert Edward's batman unleashed the hub-bub again at six next morning; my batman relieved him at eight, and so on throughout the day in two-hour shifts. At night the line guards carried on. The following morning, as our batmen threatened to report sick, we crimed a trooper for "dumb insolence" and made him expiate his sin by tending the gramophone. O'Dwyer, of one of the neighbouring ammunition columns, came over in the afternoon to complain that his mules couldn't get a wink of sleep and were muttering among themselves; but we gave him a bottle of whiskey and he went away quietly.
Monk of the other column called an hour later to ask if we wanted to draw shell-fire; but we bought him off with a snaffle bit and a bottle of hair lotion.
The whole neighbourhood grew restive. Somebody under cover of the dark took a pot at the gramophone with a revolver and winged it in the trumpet. Even the placid observation balloon which floats above our camp grew nasty and dropped binoculars and sextants on us. We built a protective breastwork of sandbags about it and carried on. As for ourselves we didn't mind the racket in the least, having taken the precaution of corking our ears with gunners' wax.
Then one evening we discovered a Highland bomber worming up a drain on his stomach towards our instrument. Cornered, he excused himself on the plea that it was a form of Swedish exercise he always took at twilight for the benefit of his digestion. An ingenious explanation, but it hardly covered the live Mills bomb he was endeavouring to conceal in a fold of his kilt. We drove him away with a barrage of peg-mallets; but secretly we were very elated, for it was clear that the strain was telling on the hardy Scot.
As a precautionary measure we now surrounded the gramophone with a barbed-wire entanglement, and so we carried on.
Next day we saw a score of kiltie officers grouped outside their Mess, heads together, apparently in earnest consultation. Every now and again they would turn and glare darkly in our direction.
"The white chiefs hold heap big palaver over yonder," Albert Edward remarked. "They're tossing up now to decide who shall come over and beard us. The braw bairn with the astrakhan knees has lost; he's cocking his bonnet and asking his pals if he's got his sporran on straight. Behold he approacheth, stepping delicately. I leave it to you, partner."
I lay in the grass and waited for the deputation. The gramophone, safe behind its sandbags and wire, was doing business as usual, Miss Birdie yowling away like a wild cat on hot cinders. The deputation picked his way round the horse lines, nodded to me and sat down on the oil-drum we keep for the accommodation of guests. He nervously opened the ball by remarking that the weather was fine.
I did not agree with him, but refused to argue. That baffled him for some seconds, but he recovered by maintaining that it was anyway finer than it had been in 1915. After that outburst he seemed at a loss for a topic of conversation, and sat scratching his ear as if he expected to get inspiration out of it as a conjurer gets rabbits.
"Ye seem verra pairtial to music?" he ventured presently.
"Passionately," said I.
"Ah—hem! Ye seem verra pairtial to that one selection," he continued.
"Passionately devoted to it," said I. "Lovely little thing; I adore its sentiment, tempo, tremolo and timbre, its fortissimo and allegro. Just listen to the part that's coming now—
'When the humming birds are singingAnd the old church bells are ringingWe'll canoodle, we'll canoodle 'neath the moon.Down in AlabamaYou'll be my starry-eyed charmer;On my white-haired kitten's grave we'll sit and spoon, spoon,spoo-oo-oon.'
Nifty bit of allegro work that—eh, what?"
He nodded politely. "Ay—of course, sairtainly; but—er—er—don't ye find it grows a wee monotonous in time?"
"Never," I retorted stoutly. "Not in the least. No more than you find the Lament or Dirge of Sandy Macpherson or Hamish MacNish monotonous."
He cocked his ears suddenly and stared at me. Then his chubby face split slowly from ear to ear in the widest grin I ever saw, and up went both his hands.
"Kamerad!" said he.
The ammunition columns on either flank provide us with plenty of amusement. They seem to live by stealing each other's mules. My line-guards tell me that stealthy figures leading shadowy donkeys are crossing to and fro all night long through my lines. The respective C.O.'s, an Australian and an Irishman, drop in on us from time to time and warn us against each other. I remain strictly neutral, and so far they have respected my neutrality. I have taken steps toward this end by surrounding my horses with barbed wire and spring guns, tying bells on them and doubling the guard.
Monk, the Australian, dropped in on us two or three days ago. "That darn Sinn Feiner is the limit," said he; "lifted my best moke off me last night while I was up at the batteries. He'd pinch Balaam's ass." We murmured condolences, but Monk waved them aside. "Oh, it's quite all right. I wasn't born yesterday, or the day before for that matter. I'll make that merry Fenian weep tears of blood before I've finished. Just you watch."
O'Dwyer, the merry Fenian, called next day.
"Give us a dhrink, brother-officers," said he. "I'm wake wid laughter."
We asked what had happened.
"Ye know that herrin'-gutted bushranger over yonder? He'd stale the milk out of your tea, he would, be the same token. Well, last night he got vicious and took a crack at my lines. I had rayson to suspect he'd be afther tryin' somethin' on, so I laid for him. I planted a certain mule where he could stale it an' guarded the rest four deep. Begob, will ye believe me, but he fell into the thrap head first—the poor simple divil."
"But he got your mule," said Albert Edward, perplexed.
"Shure an' he did, you bet he did—he got old Lyddite."
Albert Edward and I were still puzzled.
"Very high explosive—hence name," O'Dwyer explained.
"Dear hearrts," he went on, "he's got my stunt mule, my family assassin! That long-ear has twenty-three casualties to his credit, including a Brigadier. I have to twitch him to harness him, side-line him to groom him, throw him to clip him, and dhrug him to get him shod. Perceive the jest now? Esteemed comrade Monk is afther pinchin' an infallible packet o' sudden death, an' he don't know it—yet."
"What's the next move?" I inquired.
"I'm going to lave him there. Mind you I don't want to lose the old moke altogether, because, to tell the truth, I'm a biteen fond of him now that I know his thricks, but I figure Mr. Monk will be a severely cured character inside a week, an' return the beastie himself with tears an' apologies on vellum so long."
I met O'Dwyer again two days later on the mud track. He reined up his cob and begged a cigarette.
"Been havin' the fun o' the worrld down at the dressin'-station watchin' Monk's casualties rollin' in," said he. "Terrible spectacle, 'nough to make a sthrong man weep. Mutual friend Monk lookin' 'bout as genial as a wet hen. This is goin' to be a wondherful lesson to him. See you later." He nudged his plump cob and ambled off, whistling merrily.
But it was Monk we saw later. He wormed his long corpse into "Mon Repos" and sat on Albert Edward's bed laughing like a tickled hyena. "Funniest thing on earth," he spluttered. "A mule strayed into my lines t'other night and refused to leave. It was a rotten beast, a holy terror; it could kick a fly off its ears and bite a man in half. I don't mind admitting it played battledore and what's-'is-name with my organisation for a day or two, but out of respect for O'Dwyer, blackguard though he is, I..."
"Oh, so it was O'Dwyer's mule?" Albert Edward cut in innocently.
Monk nodded hastily. "Yes, so it turned out. Well, out of respect for O'Dwyer I looked after it as far as it would allow me, naturally expecting he'd come over and claim it—but he didn't. On the fourth day, after it had made a light breakfast off a bombardier's ear and kicked a gap in a farrier, I got absolutely fed up, turned the damn cannibal loose and gave it a cut with a whip for God-speed. It made off due east, cavorting and snorting until it reached the tank track; there it stopped and picked a bit of grass. Presently along comes a tank, proceeding to the fray, and gives the mule a poke in the rear. The mule lashes out, catching the tank in the chest, and then goes on with his grazing without looking round, leaving the tank for dead, as by all human standards it should have been, of course. But instead of being dead the box of tricks ups and gives the donk another butt and moves on. That roused the mule properly. He closed his eyes and laid into the tank for dear life; you could hear it clanging a mile away.
"After delivering two dozen of the best, the moke turned round to sniff the cold corpse, but the corpse was still warm and smiling. Then the mule went mad and set about the tank in earnest. He jabbed it in the eye, upper-cut it on the point, hooked it behind the ear, banged its slats, planted his left on the mark and his right on the solar plexus, but still the tank sat up and took nourishment.
"Then the donkey let a roar out of him and closed with it; tried the half Nelson, the back heel, the scissors, the roll, and the flying-mare; tried Westmorland and Cumberland style, collar and elbow, Cornish, Greece-Roman, scratch-as-scratch-can and Ju-jitsu. Nothing doing. Then as a last despairing effort he tried to charge it over on its back and rip the hide off it with his teeth.
"But the old tank gave a 'good-by-ee' cough of its exhaust and rumbled off as if nothing had happened, nothing at all. I have never seen such a look of surprise on any living creature's face as was on that donk's. He sank down on his tail, gave a hissing gasp and rolled over stone dead. Broken heart."
"Is that the end?" Albert Edward inquired.
"It is," said Monk; "and if you go outside and look half-right you'll see the bereaved Mr. O'Dwyer, all got up in sackcloth, cinders andcrêperosettes, mooning over the deceased like a dingo on an ash heap."
After the 53rd Lancers had been in the trenches for seven days—during which period the Boches hated them ceaselessly with whizz-bangs, tear-shells, snipers, coal-boxes, hand and rifle grenades, spring guns, rifle batteries, machine-guns, gas and liquid fire; and something celestial leaked badly so that the front line gave a muddy imitation of the Grand Canal, Venice—the infantry relieved them and they came out looking like nothing on earth.
They were marched into an ex-dye factory, boiled, fourteen in a vat, issued with a change of underclothes and marched on to billets.
The 53rd being a smart regiment, they were given twenty-four hours to lick and polish themselves like unto the stars of the firmament for brightness, or never hear the last of it.
In twenty-four hours they paraded again, according unto orders, and the stars of the firmament also ran.
At noon the same day the party proceeding on Blighty leave was paraded for inspection by the Orderly Officer.
Pending the arrival of the O.O., the Regimental Sergeant-Major gave them a preliminary look over.
They were dressed by the right in file, chests thrown in the air, faces shiny with soap and pink from razoring. Every badge, buckle and button twinkled a challenge back at the sun, every spur shone like a bar of silver, their leatherwork gleamed with the polish bloom of a plum, their puttees and tunics were without spot or blemish, every cap raked slightly over every right ear. They were smart men of a smart regiment, whose boast it was that they lived and died glitteringly.
The R.S.M. ran a grey foxy eye over and through them. At the sixth file from the right he paused, staggered, blanched, and broke into tears.
The Regiment was disgraced, the name gloriously won by dashing generations of light cavalry men was gone for ever. Here was a Fifty-third proposing to go home and swank about England practically naked. Blankety blankety blank. O Lord! The sixth file went pea-green under his tan, instinctively felt for his top left-hand pocket button and did it up.
The R.S.M. went on his way down the line, thrashing his leggings severely with his whip and shaking with emotion. Ten files further down he found a speck of brass polish lurking behind a belt-hook and didn't expect to survive it.
Sixteenth file rubbed it off with a handkerchief, trembling all over.
The O.O. came on the scene, inspected them with a swelling of pride tightening his tunic, found a few faults as a matter of principle, and ordered them away.
The R.S.M. escorted them to the road, dismissed them with his blessing, adjuring them to be good little boys generally, and pay his respects to a publican near the Elephant and Castle if they passed that way.
At 2 p.m. they entrained at the railhead along with carolling parties from the thousand-and-one units that go to make the B.E.F.
At 3 a.m. they detrained in the dim-lit vault of Victoria. As they tramped out of the gates a little man, wearing square clothes and an accent that twanged like a banjo, bored into the crowd.
He let some squads of mud-caked line infantry go by unmolested, threw but a cursory glance over a batch of rain-sodden gunners, then his bright eye caught the brighter buttons of the Fifty-thirds and he swooped upon them, thrusting pasteboards into every hand. The sixteenth file paused with his chum under a lamp and read his card.
It ran as follows: