"Not a bad possie," said George, looking round the village. "Let's
rustle a bivvie before the crowd comes along."
All George's performances in the art of rustling bivvies rank as star.
He permits no coarse and obvious gathering of an expectant horde about
the opening door; no slacking of straps and bootlaces until the final
"I will" is said on either side. He debouches in extended order on
the doomed house; gets his range and has the barrage well in hand (the
quantity and quality of Madame's gesticulations furnish the key to
this) before Colin drifts off the horizon and shows a peaked face with
haunting eyes over George's shoulder. Colin does not speak. That is
not his _métier_. He is the star shell illuminating the position; and
usually in about six minutes' time it is safe for John to put in an
appearance with the kit.
This is the recognised procedure, and it has served us indifferently
well up and down three years of war and a good deal of France and
Flanders. Therefore John was not to blame when, after waiting the
scheduled six minutes, he arrived to find the other two still in
the thick of it. Either Colin was not haunting up to form (which was
likely, as he had been over-fed lately) or George's French (which was
never made in the place where they make marriages) had scandalised
Madame.
She stood in the door like some historical personage, probably the
Sphinx, and repeated a guttural kind of incantation while George
stretched his ears until they stood out more than usual in a struggle
to understand.
"Rotten patois some of these people speak," he said. "I believe she
has a room, though something's biting her. Likely enough Fritz went
off with all her furniture; but I've already explained twenty times
that that doesn't matter. _Écoutez, Madame._ We only want a room.
_Chambre-à-coucher._ We can furnish it. We have three beds. _Trois
lits._ _Trois_ stretcher-beds sent over from _Angleterre_. _À la
gare._ We've just seen them. _Trois lits nous avons._ Three beds."
"Beds!" Madame pounced on the word. "_C'est cela!_ No beds,
_Monsieur_. _Je n'en ai pas._"
"Ah, now we know where we are." George looked round triumphantly.
"_Écoutez, Madame._ We don't want beds. _Nous les desirons jamais._
We have them. _Trois lits._ We don't want them. We have beds.
_Comprenez?_"
"No beds," explained Madame firmly.
"But I've just told you--" George plunged again into the maelstrom,
and a pretty girl appeared from the firelit room behind to stir him
to his highest flights of eloquence. A smell of savoury cooking
came also, and out in the street night shut down dark and chill and
sinister, as it does in all the best novels. John let part of the
kit down on the door-sill. It was his way of explaining that at the
present moment there was a deeper, more intimate call than the Call of
the Wild. Colin moved up a step and turned the haunting-stop full on.
George redoubled his efforts, making them very clear indeed. We could
understand almost every word he said.
Then Madame answered, and we could understand that too.
"No beds," she said.
The pretty girl smiled in a troubled way and murmured something in a
soft voice.
"She says they haven't got any beds in the rooms. Fritz took them
all," interpreted George. "_Écoutez, Mademoiselle_. We have beds.
_Trois lits. Nous les avons. Tous les trois. Oui. À la gare.
Absolument_."
Mademoiselle looked at Madame with a kink of her pretty brows. Madame
rose like a balloon to the need.
"No beds," she said very distinctly, with a rounding of eyes and
mouth. "No beds, Messieurs. No-o-o--_beds_."
Before George could recover John interfered. He makes a hobby of
cutting Gordian knots.
"Oh, what's the earthly use of telling 'em we have beds when they
can see for themselves that we haven't? They just think we can't
understand. Let's go up and take the rooms if they're decent. Then
we'll get the stretchers and put 'em up. That's the only sort of
argument we can handle."
Manfully George went to work again. And reluctant, and yet obviously
fascinated by his French, like a bird by a snake, Mademoiselle led
up the narrow stairs and into a sizeable room, clean as a pin and as
naked. On the threshold Madame washed her hands of hope.
"_Regardez!_ No beds. _C'est affreux!_"
George began again. He had courage. Whatever else Nature and luck
denied him there was no question of that. For a little it looked as
though he were in sight of the goal. Then Mademoiselle explained. They
were _désolées_, but the _sales Boches_ had stolen all the beds, and
Madame would not let the bare rooms to _Messieurs les Anglais_. It
would not be _convenable_ when they had no beds.
"No beds!" Madame appealed to the skylight as witness, and we looked
at each other. It was getting late and the others would have rustled
all the best bivvies by now. John had another brain-wave.
"Let's pantomime it. They always understand pantomime. There's no use
_saying_ we've got beds--not when George has to say it. We'll show
them."
Earnestly we pantomimed stretcher beds--our own stretcher beds--and
reposeful slumber thereon. "_Mon Dieu!_" cried Mademoiselle,
retreating in haste. "No beds," repeated Madame, unconvinced and
unafraid.
"She means that she doesn't want to have us," said John in cold
despair.
"She'd be a fool if she did now," answered Colin grimly. "Let's get
out of this."
And then John had a third brain-wave. He ordered George on guard, and
descended with Colin in search of the concrete proof of our sanity.
And Madame's voice, faint yet pursuing, followed us down.
"No beds," it said.
In ten minutes we were back triumphant with the three stretchers. It
was a full six months since we had written to England for them, and
they had come at last. Visions of rest went upstairs with us, and
under the big eyes of Madame and Mademoiselle and several more Madames
who had collected as unobtrusively as a silk hat collects dust
we slashed at the coverings, ripped them off and disclosed--three
deck-chairs.
We did not attempt to meet the situation. We left it to the devil--or
Madame. And she, with the lofty serenity of one who through long
and grievous misunderstanding has won home at last, was completely
adequate.
"No beds," she said.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Grieved Wife_. "OH, SIMON, ALL OVER YOUR NOO
CONTROLLED TROUSERS."]
* * * * *
"ADOPTION.--Fine healthy boy, 3½ years; entire surrender
to good home. reception. 5 bedrooms; £1,100."--_Provincial
Paper_.
What an exacting young rascal!
* * * * *
"Liebknecht was the son of a father who opposed tyranny in
earlier days, who sounded the toxin for liberty."--_Express
and Star_ (_Wolverhampton_).
But, to do old LIEBKNECHT justice, it was the son, not the father, who
spelt it that way.
* * * * *