When I was young, my parents sent me to a boarding school, not in any hopes
of getting me educated, but because they wanted a quiet home.
At that boarding school I met one Frederick Delane Milroy, a chubby
flame-coloured brat who had no claims to genius, excepting as a
_littérateur_.
The occasion that established his reputation with the pen was a Natural
History essay. We were given five sheets of foolscap, two hours and our own
choice of subject. I chose the elephant, I remember, having once been kind
to one through the medium of a bag of nuts.
Frederick D. Milroy headed his effort "THE FERT" in large capitals, and
began, "The fert is a noble animal--" He got no further, the extreme
nobility of the ferret having apparently blinded him to its other
characteristics.
The other day, as I was wandering about on the "line," dodging Bosch crumps
with more agility than grace, I met Milroy (Frederick Delane) once more.
He was standing at the entrance of a cosy little funk-hole, his boots and
tunic undone, sniffing the morning nitro-glycerine. He had swollen
considerably since our literary days, but was wearing his hair as red as
ever, and I should have known it anywhere--on the darkest night. I dived
for him and his hole, pushed him into it, and re-introduced myself. He
remembered me quite well, shook my chilblains heartily, and invited me
further underground for tea and talk.
It was a nice hole, cramped and damp, but very deep, and with those Bosch
love-tokens thudding away upstairs I felt that the nearer Australia the
better. But the rats! Never before have I seen rats in such quantities;
they flowed unchidden all over the dug-out, rummaged in the cupboards,
played kiss-in-the-ring in the shadows, and sang and brawled behind the old
oak panelling until you could barely hear yourself shout. I am fond of
animals, but I do not like having to share my tea with a bald-headed rodent
who gets noisy in his cups, or having a brace of high-spirited youngsters
wrestle out the championship of the district on my bread-and-butter.
Freddy apologised for them; they were getting a bit above themselves, he
was afraid, but they were seldom dangerous, seldom attacked one unprovoked.
"Live and let live" was their motto. For all that they _did_ get a trifle
_de trop_ sometimes; he himself had lost his temper when he awoke one
morning to find a brawny rat sitting on his face combing his whiskers in
mistake for his own (a pardonable error in the dark); and, determining to
teach them a lesson, had bethought him of his old friend, the noble fert.
He therefore sent home for two of the best.
The ferrets arrived in due course, received the names Burroughs and
Welcome, were blessed and turned loose.
They had had a rough trip over at the bottom of the mail sack and were
looking for trouble. An old rat strolled out of his club to see what all
the noise was about, and got the excitement he needed. Seven friends came
to his funeral and never smiled again. There was great rejoicing in that
underground Mess that evening; Burroughs and Welcome were fêted on bully
beef and condensed milk, and made honorary members.
For three days the good work went on; there was weeping in the cupboards
and gnashing of teeth behind the old oak panelling. Then on the fourth day
Burroughs and Welcome disappeared, and the rats swarmed to their own again.
The deserters were found a week later; they had wormed through a system of
rat-holes into the next dug-out, inhabited by the Atkinses, and had
remained there, honoured guests.
It is the nature of the British Atkins to make a pet of anything, from a
toad to a sucking pig--he cannot help it. The story about St. George, doyen
of British soldiers, killing that dragon--nonsense! He would have spanked
it, may be, until it promised to reform, then given it a cigarette, and
taken it home to amuse the children. To return to our ferrets, Burroughs
and Welcome provided no exception to the rule; they were taught to sit up
and beg, and lie down and die, to turn handsprings and play the
mouth-organ; they were gorged with Maconochie, plum jam and rum ration; it
was doubtful if they ever went to bed sober. Times out of number they were
borne back to the Officers' Mess and exhorted to do their bit, but they
returned immediately to their friends the Atkinses, _viâ_ their private
route, not unnaturally preferring a life of continuous carousal and
vaudeville among the flesh-pots to sapping and mining down wet rat-holes.
Freddy was of opinion that, when the battalion proceeded up Unter den
Linden, Burroughs and Welcome would be with it as regimental mascots,
marching behind the band, bells on their fingers, rings on their toes. He
also assured me that if he ever again has to write an essay on the Fert,
its characteristics, the adjective "noble" will not figure so prominently.
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