As I say, it seemed like a conspiracy--but I swear I was not one of the
conspirators! They were--my benefactor already--the pianist, and his
friends; three young privates in the R.A.M.C., all afterwards great
friends of mine. Of course, this form was too good to be true of the
mass; and the particular Field Ambulance to which they belonged was an
unusually brainy unit, as I came to know it through many other
representatives; but I shall always be grateful to that musical young
Meredithian for the start he gave me, and may this mite of
acknowledgment meet his spectacles.
On the same opening page of my first day-book, to be sure, a less
rarefied level is reached by some comparatively pedestrian stuff,
including a work of Mr. Charles Garvice and no fewer than two wastrels
'of my own composure' (as the village organist had it); but my place
(though gratifying) was obviously due to an ulterior curiosity; and
among the twenty-three books in all that went out that afternoon, there
was a further burst of four that went far to restore the higher
standard: they were _Lorna Doone_, _My Novel_, _Nicholas Nickleby_ and
_Oliver Twist_. The two first fell to Jocks; the Blackmore masterpiece
was read forthwith from cover to cover in the trenches, and that Jock
came down by special permission for something else as good!
A happy afternoon, and of still happier omen! But I was going to need
more 'good stuff'; that was the first hard fact to be faced. I had not
reckoned with those eager intellectuals, the young stretcher-bearers who
had borne a lantern for the nonce. They were going to bring their
friends, and did; and were I to tabulate the books these youths took out
between them, in the busy month to come, it would be pronounced, I
think, as good a little library as a modern young man, with a
sociological bias and a considered outlook, could wish to form. And then
there were all the books we hadn't got for them! But these missing
friends did more, perhaps, to make friends for the Rest Hut than such as
were there to close the subject; for one might be able to suggest
something else instead; and the man might have read that already, but
his face might lighten at the recollection, and across the counter on
our four elbows the pair of us forge that absent book into the first
link of friendship.
But any one can gossip about the books he loves, and with a soldier at
the front any fool could talk on any topic. So I had it both ways, as
one seldom does, according to the saying. It may be that the men who
found their pleasure in the Rest Hut were by nature responsive and
enthusiastic, and not merely sensitised and refined by the generous
fires of constant camaraderie and unselfish suffering. I am speaking of
them now only as I found them across that narrow counter, while I
deliberately pasted my label of rules inside the cover, and deliberately
dabbed my rubber-stamp down on the fly-leaf opposite. I have seen clean
into a noble heart between these delaying rites and a meticulous entry
in my day-book. It was pain to me when three or four were waiting their
turn, and a certain despatch became imperative; it always meant a
corresponding period without any work or any friend-making across the
counter.
At the short end, beyond the flap (never lowered in the Rest Hut), my
friend and mate dispensed the cigarettes and biscuits, and tea made with
devoted care by a wrinkled Frenchwoman worth all the Y.M.C.A. orderlies
I ever saw, not excepting the two stalwarts at the Ark. The Rest Hut
orderly was a smart soldier of the old type, a clever carpenter, and a
good cook with large ideas about breakfast. He lived out, did not give
us his whole time, and early struck me as a man of mystery; but he was a
quick and willing worker who did his part by us. The jewel of the hut's
company was my mate. I can only describe him as an Australian Jock, and
of the first water on both sides. Twice or thrice rejected in Australia,
he had come home to try again and yet again with no better luck; so here
he was, with his fine heart and his dry cough, as near the firing-line
as he could get 'for the duration.' I may lose a friend for having said
so much, yet I have to add that he had taken the whole burden of the
till and its attendant accounts (a hut-leader's business) off the
shoulders of inexperience. Friends who predicted the worst of me in
this connection, and are surprised to see me still outside a defaulter's
cell, will please accept the only explanation.
It was a musical tea that opening afternoon, for another of our talented
troupe brought the pick of his orchestra from the Association Cinema in
the main street hard by; and for an hour it was like the Carlton, with a
difference. I wonder what the Carlton could charge for that difference,
even at this stage of the war!
Altogether I thought myself the luckiest civilian alive that February
afternoon; but my bed of roses had its crumpled leaf. On the fine great
cardboard programme for the week (next the map: our Illuminator again),
with its cunning slots for moveable amusements, besides that of the
Cinema Orchestra there was something about Prayers. That was where I was
coming in--on the wrong side of the counter--and as the night advanced
it blew a gale inside me. Five minutes before the time, I mounted the
platform and made known the worst; and ever afterwards finished the
evening by pursuing the same plan, so that all who wished could
withdraw, losing only the last five minutes, and no man (I promised
them) have anything unpalatable thrust down his throat. I am not sure
that it was the most courageous method of procedure; but it was mine,
and the men knew where they were. I used to read a few verses, a Vailima
Prayer and but one or two more: some men went out, but there was the
satisfaction of feeling that those who stayed were in the mood for
Prayers.
After the first week or ten days, a third worker came to help us; and he
being a minister, I persuaded him to relieve me of this nightly duty,
though with a sigh that was not all relief. I always loved reading to
the men, but Prayers are shy work for an old layman, and soldiers (if I
know them) care less for the deathless composition of a Saint than for
the unpremeditated outpouring of the man before their eyes. The minister
used to give them all that, perched on a chair in their midst; and he
kept a much fuller hut than I at my rostrum of American cloth.