My Dear Charles,--St. John, in 1914 a light-hearted lieut., advancing and
retiring with his platoon as an all-seeing Providence or a short-spoken
Company Commander might direct, and in 1915 a Brass-hat with a vast amount
of knowledge and only a hundred buff slips or so to write it down on, is
now Second in Command of his regiment. He tells me he is encamped with his
little lot on the forward slope of a muddy and much pitted ravine. On the
opposite slope are some nasty noisy guns, and at the bottom of the ravine
are the cookers.
When, after much forethought, he has found something to do and has begun
doing it, there is a cry of "Stand clear!" and, with that prudence which
even an Englishman will learn if you do not hustle him but give him a year
or two to find by experience that care should sometimes be taken, all get
to earth. The guns fire; the neighbourhood heaves and readjusts itself, and
a man may then come out again. By the time, however, he has collected his
senses and his materials there is another "Stand clear!" and back he must
go to earth. This is what is technically known as Rest.
It was not good enough for one of the battalion cooks. No man can do
justice to a mess of pottage by lying on his belly at a distance and
frowning at it. After many movements to and fro, he eventually said be
damned to guns and "Stand clears;" stood on the top of his cooker (there
was nowhere else to stand), and, holding a dixie lid in his hand and
bestowing on the contents of the dixie that encouraging smile without which
no stew can stew, defied all the artillery of the B.E.F. to do its worst.
It did.
The cook recovered to find himself among his dixies, frizzling pleasantly
and browning nicely in certain parts. Even so, professional interests
over-came any feeling of personal injury. Rising majestically, he stepped
down and advanced upon the nearest gun crew. "Now you've done it, you
blighters!" he shouted, waving an angry fist at them. "You've been and gone
and blown all the pork out of the beans."
The same man went on holiday to the neighbouring town, which is in reality
an ordinarily dull and dirty provincial place, but to the tired warrior is
a haven of rest and a paradise of gaiety and good things. Here he came into
contact with the local A.P.M. in the following way. The latter was in his
office after lunch, brooding no doubt, when in came a French policeman
greatly excited in French. There was, it appeared, promise of a commotion
at the Hotel de Ville. A British soldier had got mixed up in the queue of
honest French civilians who were waiting outside for the delivery of their
legal papers. There were no bi-linguists present, but it had been made
quite clear to the Britisher that he must go, and it had been made quite
clear by the Britisher that he should stay. Always outside the Hotel de
Ville at 2.30 of an afternoon was this queue of natives, each waiting his
turn to be admitted to the joyless sanctum of the Commissaire, there to
receive those illegible documents without which no French home is complete.
Never before had a British soldier fallen in with them, and, when requested
to dismiss, showed signs of being obstreperous.
The A.P.M. buckled on his Sam Browne belt and prepared for the worst, which
he assumed to be but another example of the frailty of human nature when
suddenly confronted with unaccustomed luxuries. When he got to his prey he
found him not quite in the state expected. Usually at the sight of an
A.P.M. a soldier, whatever the strength of his case, will express regret,
promise reform, and make ready to pass on. This one stood his ground; on no
account would he leave the queue. He explained to the A.P.M. that he was
too used to the manifold and subtle devices of people who wanted to snaffle
other people's places in queues. He was however quite prepared to parley,
and was only too glad to find a fellow-countryman, speaking the right
language and having the right sense of justice, to parley with.
He said he had taken his proper place in the line, with no attempt to
hustle or jostle anyone else. He meant to do no one any harm, and he was
prepared to pay the due price, in current French notes, whatever it might
be. But having got his place by right he refused to give it up to anyone
else, be he French or English, Field Officer or even gendarme. He had been
excessively restrained in resisting the unscrupulous attempts of the
gendarme to dislodge him. If he had made any threat of knocking the
gendarme down he had not really intended to take that course. The threat
was only a formal reply to the gendarme's proposal to stick a sword through
his middle.
He was, he said most emphatically, not drunk. If the A.P.M., in whom he had
all confidence, would occupy his place in the queue and keep it for him, he
would demonstrate this by a practical test. In any case he ventured to
insist on his point. Without claiming any special privileges for a man
fighting and cooking for his country, he claimed the right of any human
being, whatever his nationality, to witness any cinema show which might be
in progress.
The underlying good qualities of both nations were evidenced in the sequel.
When the A.P.M. had interpreted the matter the gendarme insisted on an
embrace, and the cook permitted it. Later, I have reason to believe, they
witnessed a most moving cinema play together, but not in the Commissaire's
office at the Hotel de Ville.
Yours ever,
HENRY.
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