If there is one man in France whom I do not envy it is the G.H.Q.
Weather Prophet. I can picture the unfortunate wizard sitting in his
bureau gazing into a crystal, _Old Moore's Almanack_ in one hand, a
piece of seaweed in the other, trying to guess what tricks the
weather will be up to next.
For there is nothing this climate cannot do. As a quick-change
artist it stands _sanspareil_ (French) and _nulli secundus_ (Latin).
And now it seems to have mislaid the Spring altogether. Summer has
come at one stride. Yesterday the staff-cars smothered one with mud
as they whirled past; to-day they choke one with dust. Yesterday the
authorities were issuing precautions against frostbite; to-day they
are issuing precautions against sunstroke. Nevertheless we are not
complaining. It will take a lot of sunshine to kill us; we like it,
and we don't mind saying so.
The B.E.F. has cast from it its mitts and jerkins and whale-oil,
emerged from its subterranean burrows into the open, and in every
wood a mushroom town of bivouacs has sprung up over-night. Here and
there amateur gardeners have planted flower-beds before their tents;
one of my corporals is nursing some radishes in an ammunition box and
talks crop prospects by the hour. My troop-sergeant found two palm
plants in the ruins of a chateau glass-house, and now has them
standing sentry at his bivouac entrance. He sits between them after
evening stables, smoking his pipe and fancying himself back in
Zanzibar; he expects the coker-nuts along about August, he tells me.
Summer has come, and on every slope graze herds of winter-worn gun
horses and transport mules. The new grass has gone to the heads of
the latter and they make continuous exhibitions of themselves,
gambolling about like ungainly lambkins and roaring with unholy
laughter. Summer has come, and my groom and countryman has started
to whistle again, sure sign that Winter is over, for it is only
during the Summer that he reconciles himself to the War. War, he
admits, serves very well as a light gentlemanly diversion for the
idle months, but with the first yellow leaf he grows restless and
hints indirectly that both ourselves and the horses would be much
better employed in the really serious business of showing the little
foxes some sport back in our own green isle. "That Paddy," says he,
slapping the bay with a hay wisp, "he wishes he was back in the
county Kildare, he does so, the dear knows. Pegeen, too, if she
would be hearin' the houn's shoutin' out on her from the kennels
beyond in Jigginstown she'd dhrop down dead wid the pleasure wid'in
her, an' that's the thrue word," says he, presenting the chestnut
lady with a grimy army biscuit. "Och musha, the poor foolish
cratures," he says and sighs.
However, Summer has arrived, and by the sound of his cheery whistle
at early stables shrilling "Flannigan's Wedding," I understand that
the horses are settling down once more and we can proceed with the
battle.
If my groom and countryman is not an advocate of war as a winter
sport, our Mr. Mactavish, on the other hand, is of the directly
opposite opinion. "War," he murmured dreamily to me yesterday as we
lay on our backs beneath a spreading parasol of apple-blossom and
watched our troop-horses making pigs of themselves in the young
clover--"war! don't mention the word to me. Maidenhead, Canader,
cushions, cigarettes, only girl in the world doing all the heavy
paddle-work--that's the game in the good ole summer-time. Call round
again about October and I'll attend to your old war." It is
fortunate that these gentlemen do not adorn any higher positions than
those of private soldier and second lieutenant, else, between them,
they would stop the War altogether and we should all be out of jobs.