Nobody out here seems exactly infatuated with the politicians
nowadays. The Front Trenches have about as much use for the Front
Benches as a big-game hunter for mosquitoes. The bayonet professor
indicates his row of dummies and says to his lads, "Just imagine they
are Cabinet Ministers--go!" and in a clock-tick the heavens are
raining shreds of sacking and particles of straw. The demon bomber
fancies some prominent Parliamentarian is lurking in the opposite
sap, grits his teeth, and gets an extra five yards into his bowling.
But I am not entirely of the vulgar opinion. The finished politician
may not be a subject for odes, but a political education is a great
asset to any man. Our Mess President, William, once assisted a
friend to lose a parliamentary election, and his experience has been
invaluable to us. The moment we are tired of fighting and want
billets, the Squadron sits down where it is and the Skipper passes
the word along for William. William dusts his boots, adjusts his tie
and heads for the most prepossessing farm in sight. Arrived there,
he takes off his hat to the dog, pats the pig, asks the cow after the
calf, salutes the farmer, curtsies to the farmeress, then turning to
the inevitable baby, exclaims in the language of the country, "Mong
Jew, kell jolly ongfong" (Gosh, what a topping kid!), and bending
tenderly over it imprints a lingering kiss upon its india-rubber
features and wins the freedom of the farm. The Mess may make use of
the kitchen; the spare bed is at the Skipper's disposal; the cow will
move up and make room for the First Mate; the pig will be only too
happy to welcome the Subalterns to its modest abode.
Ordinary billeting officers stand no chance against our William and
his political education. "That fellow," I heard one disgruntled
competitor remark to him, "would hug the devil for a knob of coke."
Once only did he meet his match, and a battle of Titans resulted.
In pursuit of his business he entered a certain farmhouse, to find
the baby already in possession of another officer, a heavy red
creature with a monocle, who was rocking the infant's cradle
seventy-five revolutions per minute and making dulcet noises on a
moustache comb.
William's heart fell to his field boots; he recognised the red
creature's markings immediately. This was another politician; no
bloodless victory would be his; fur would fly first, powder burn--Wow!
The red person must have tumbled to William as well, for he increased
the revolutions to one hundred and forty per minute and broke into a
shrill lullaby of his own impromptu composition:
"Go to sleep, Mummy's liddle Did-ums;
Go to sleep, Daddy's liddle Thing-me-jig."
Nevertheless this did not baffle our William. He approached from a
flank, deftly twitched the infant out of its cradle by the scruff of
its neck, and commenced to plaster it with tender kisses. However
the red man tailed it as it went past and hung on, kissing any bits
he could reach. When the mother reappeared they were worrying the
baby between them as a couple of hound puppies worry the hind leg of
a cub. She beat them faithfully with a broom and hove both of them
out into the wide wet world, and we all slept in a bog that night,
and William was much abused and loathed. But that was his only
failure.
If getting billets is William's job, getting rid of them is the
Babe's affair. William, like myself, has far too great a mastery of
the patois to handle delicate situations with success. For instance,
when the farmer approaches me with tidings that my troopers have
burnt two ploughshares and a crowbar, and my troop-horses have
masticated a brick wall, I engage him in palaver, with the result
that we eventually part, I under the impression that the incident is
closed, and he under the impression that I have promised to buy him a
new farm. This leads to all sorts of international complications.
The Babe, on the other hand, regards a knowledge of French as immoral
and only knows enough of it to order himself a drink. He is also
gifted with a slight stutter, which under the stress of a foreign
language becomes chronic. So when we evacuate a billet William
furnishes the Babe with enough money to compensate the farmer for all
damages we have not committed, and then effaces himself. Donning a
bright smile the Babe approaches the farmer and presses the lucre
into his honest palm.
"Hi," says the worthy fellow, "what is this, then? One hundred
francs! Where is the seventy-four francs, six centimes for the fleas
your dog stole? The two hundred francs, three centimes for the
indigestion your rations gave my pig? The eight thousand and
ninety-nine francs, five centimes insurance money I should have
collected if your brigands had not stopped my barn from burning?--and
all the other little damages, three million, eight hundred thousand
and forty-four francs, one centime in all--where is it, hein?"
"Ec-c-coutez une moment," the Babe begins. "Jer p-p-poovay expliquay
tut--tut--tut--tut--sh-sh-shiss----" says he, loosening his stammer
at rapid fire, popping and hissing, rushing and hitching like a
red-hot machine-gun with a siphon attachment. In five minutes the
farmer is white in the face and imploring the Babe to let bygones be
bygones. "N-n-not a b-bit of it, old t-top," says the Babe. "Jer
p-p-poovay exp-p-pliquay b-b-bub-bub-bub----" and away it goes again
like a combined steam riveter and shower bath, like the water coming
down at Lodore. No farmer however hardy has been known to stand more
than twenty minutes of this. A quarter of an hour usually sees him
bolting and barring himself into the cellar, with the Babe blowing
him kisses of fond farewell through the key-hole.
We are billeted on a farm at the present moment.
The Skipper occupies the best bed; the rest of us are doing the al
fresco touch in tents and bivouacs scattered about the surrounding
landscape. We are on very intimate terms with the genial farmyard
folk. Every morning I awake to find half a dozen hens and their
gentleman friend roosting along my anatomy. One of the hens laid an
egg in my ear this morning. William says she mistook it for her
nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest bird, was merely paying
rent for the roost.
The Babe turned up at breakfast this morning wearing only half a
moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he
slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since--a
moustache must be very ticklish to digest.
Yesterday MacTavish, while engaged in taking his tub in the open,
noticed that his bath-water was mysteriously sinking lower and lower.
Turning round to investigate the cause of the phenomenon he beheld a
gentle milch privily sucking it up behind his back. There was a
strong flavour of Coal Tar soap in the _cafè au lait_ to-day.
This morning at dawn I was aroused by a cold foot pawing at my face.
Blinking awake, I observed Albert Edward in rosy pyjamas capering
beside my bed. "Show a leg, quick," he whispered. "Rouse out, and
Uncle will show boysey pretty picture."
Brushing aside the coverlet of fowl, I followed him tiptoe across the
dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he and MacTavish call "home."
Albert Edward lifted a flap and signed me to peep within. It was, as
he had promised, a pretty picture.
At the foot of our MacTavish's mattress, under a spare blanket lifted
from that warrior in his sleep, lay a large pink pig. Both were
occupied in peaceful and stertorous repose.
"Heads of Angels, by Sir Joshua Reynolds," breathed Albert Edward in
my ear.