Our squadron is at the present moment billeted in what the
house-agents would describe as a "unique old-world property," a
ramshackle pile which looks like a palace from the south and a
workhouse from the north.
It commenced its career, back in the long ago, as a glorified
week-end bungalow for Doges. In course of time it became a monastery.
When the pious monks took over they got busy with whitewash and
obliterated most of the Doges' sportive mural decorations. Most, but
not all.
Methinks the Abbot had tripped the boulevards in his youth and he
spared some of the brighter spots of the more sportive frescoes in
memory of old times and to keep his heart up during Lent. Anyhow
they are still there.
To-day our long-faced chums champ their feeds in cloisters where once
the good monks told their beads, and our bold sergeant boys quaff
their tonics beneath a painted ceiling whereon Rackham satyrs are
depicted chivvying Kirchner nymphs across a Leader landscape.
A small portion of one immense wing is inhabited by a refugee lady,
who had retired in good order, haling the whole menagerie along with
her, calves, fowls, children, donkey, piebald pig and all.
When first we came into residence here we heard strange nocturnal
swishings and shufflings overhead, where none should be, and
attributed them to the ghost of the Abbot, who had returned from
Purgatory with a bucket of lime and was striving to wash out his
former lapses. Later on we discovered it was the calves, who from
inscrutable motives of their own prefer living in the attics. How
Mrs. Refugee hoisted them up there in the first place and how she
proposes to get them down again when they ripen are questions she
alone can answer, but will never do so because we haven't enough
Italian to ask her.
The piebald pig is supported entirely by voluntary contributions,
and, like many other such institutions, keeps frequent fasts. When
he retreated here there was no sty to accommodate him; but Mrs.
Refugee, with the practical originality that distinguishes her,
routed out a retired dog-kennel from somewhere and anchored him to
it. This has had the effect of creating in him a dual personality.
Sometimes he thinks he is just fat old Dolce F. Niente the pig, and
behaves as such, and one can tread all over him without disturbing
his melodious slumbers. At others the collar and chain prey on his
mind and he imagines he is Patrise Defensor the trusty watch-dog, and
mows down all comers.
The children and fowls are doing nicely. They speedily discover what
innumerable fowls and children all the world over had discovered
before them, namely, that the turtling dove is a wild beast compared
with the British warrior and his war-horse, and they victimise the
defenceless creatures accordingly.
The result is that the Atkinses get only what husks of their rations
the children have neglected, and the fowls only allow the hairies
what oats they cannot possibly stagger away with.
Antonio Giuseppe the donkey was also a war profiteer. Commerce might
stagnate, armies clash and struggle, nations bleed to death, he did
not care. "_Viva la guerra!_" said Antonio Giuseppe. "As long as
there is a British unit handy to dine out with I'm all for it."
These sentiments, though deplorable, were not without reason, for
until we came I very much doubt if he had ever had a full meal--a
real rib-straining blow-out--in his life.
He was a miserable little creature, standing about a yard high by six
inches broad. By tucking in his tail he could have passed for a
rabbit at any fancy-dress ball. His costume was a patch-work affair
of hairy tufts and bare spaces. I think he must have been laid away
in a drawer without camphor at one time and been mauled by a moth.
A disreputable ragamuffin person was Antonio Giuseppe the donkey, but
for all that he had a way with him, and was in his day the
Light-weight Champion Diner-out of all Italy--probably of the world.
At night he reposed in the kitchen along with Mrs. Refugee, the
bambini and fowls. The day he spent in his observation post, lurking
behind a screen of mulberries and vines, keeping a watchful eye on
the horses.
As soon as their nosebags were on he commenced to move stealthily
towards the lines, timing himself to arrive just as the nosebags came
off and the hay-nets went up. He then glided softly between the
horses and helped himself. Being tiny and very discreet he
frequently passed unobserved, but should the line-guard spot him he
had his plan of action.
Oft-times have I seen a perspiring and blasphemous trooper pursuing
the winged Antonio Giuseppe round the lines with a stable broom; but
when the broom descended Antonio Giuseppe was not there to receive
it. He would nip under the breast-rope, slip in under one horse's
belly and out between the legs of another, dodging through and round
the astounded animals like a half-back through a loose scrum or a
greased pig at a fair, snatching a generous contribution from each
hay-net as he passed. Under this method Antonio throve and throve;
but the tale of splintered brooms grew and grew and the Quartermaster
loved me not.
Yesterday the General intimated that he'd like to inspect us. Always
eager to oblige, we licked, polished, brushed and burnished
ourselves, pipeclayed our head-ropes, pomaded our moustaches,
powdered our noses and paraded.
We paraded to-day in regimental column in a field west of our
palace-workhouse and sat stiff in our saddles, the cheerful sunshine
glowing on leather-work, glinting on brass and steel, conscious that
we could give any Beauty Chorus a run for its money.
There sounded a shrill fanfaronade of trumpets, tootling the salute,
and a dazzle of gold and scarlet like a Turner sunset, blazed into
view--the General and his Staff.
At the same moment Antonio Giuseppe espied us from his observation
post and, getting it into his head that we were picnicing out (it was
about lunch-time), hastened to join us. As the General reached the
leading squadron Antonio Giuseppe reached the near squadron and,
sliding unobtrusively into its ranks, looked about for the hay-nets.
However the Second in Command noticed his arrival and motioned to his
trumpeter. The trumpeter spurned forward and pinked Antonio Giuseppe
in the hindquarters with his sword-point as a hint to him to move on.
Antonio, thinking the line-guards were upon him and with a new type
of broom, loosed a squeal of agony and straightway commenced his
puss-in-the-corner antics in and out and round about the horses'
legs. They didn't like it at all; it tickled and upset them; they
changed from the horizontal to the vertical, giggled and pawed the
air.
Things were becoming serious. A hee-hawing tatterdemalion donkey,
playing "ring o' roses" with a squadron of war-horses, tickling them
into hysterics, detracts from the majesty of such occasions and is no
fit spectacle for a General. A second trumpeter joined in the chase
and scored a direct prick on the soft of Antonio Giuseppe's nose as
he dived out under the tail of a plunging gun-mare. Antonio whipped
about and fled towards the centre squadron, ears wobbling, braying
anguished S.O.S.'s. The two trumpeters, young and ardent lads,
thundered after him, swords at the engage, racing each other, knee to
knee for first blood. They scored simultaneously on the butt of his
tail, and Antonio, stung to the quick, shot clean through (or rather
under) the centre squadron into the legs of the General's horse,
tripping up that majestic animal and bringing the whole stately
edifice down into a particularly muddy patch of Italy.
Tremendous and awful moment! As my groom and countryman expressed
it, "Ye cud hear the silence for miles." The General did not break
it. I think his mouth was too full of mud and loose teeth for words.
He arose slowly out of the ooze like an old walrus lifting through a
bed of seaweed black as death, slime dripping from his whiskers, and
limped grimly from the field, followed by his pallid staff proffering
handkerchiefs and smelling-salts. But I understand he became
distinctly articulate when he got home, and the upshot of it is that
we are to be put in the forefront of the nastiest battle that can be
arranged for us.
And Antonio Giuseppe the donkey, author of all the trouble, what of
him? you ask.
Antonio Giuseppe the donkey will never smile again, dear reader.
With his edges trimmed and "Welcome" branded across his back he may
serve as a mangy door-mat for some suburban maisonette, but at the
present moment he lies in the mud of the parade-ground, as flat as a
sole on a sand-bank, waiting for someone to roll him up and carry him
away.
When a full-fed Major-General falls he falls heavily.