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 Delano 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 Boche
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
Boche 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 bawled 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, maybe, 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, via 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.