Not long ago a notice appeared in Part II Orders to the effect that
our Army had established a Rest Home at X where invalid officers
might be sent for a week's recuperation.
Now X is a very pleasant place, consisting of a crowd of doll's-house
châlets set between cool pine-woods and the sea.
The châlets are labelled variously "Villa des Roses," "Les
Hirondelles," "Sans Souci," and so on, and in the summertimes of
happier years swarmed with comfortable bourgeois, bare-legged
children and Breton nannas; but in these stern days a board above the
gate of "Villa des Roses" announces that the Assistant-Director of
Agriculture may be found within meditating on the mustard-and-cress
crop, while "Les Hirondelles" and "Sans Souci" harbour respectively
the Base Press Censor (whose tar-brush hovered over this perfectly
priceless article) and a platoon of the D.L.O.L.R.R.V.R. (Duchess of
Loamshire's Own Ladies' Rabbit Rearing Volunteer Reserve).
X, as I said before, is an exceedingly pleasant place; you may lean
out of the window o' mornings and watch the D.L.O.L.R.R.V.R.'s
Sergeant-Majoress putting her platoon through Swedish monkey motions,
and in the afternoons you can recline on the sands and watch them
sporting in the glad sea-waves (telescopes protruding from the upper
windows of "Villa des Roses" and "Sans Souci" suggesting that the
A.D.A. and the B.P.C. are similarly employed).
The between-whiles may be spent lapping up ozone from the sea, resin
from the pine-woods, and champagne cocktails which Marie-Louise mixes
so cunningly in the little café round the corner; and what with one
thing and another the invalid officer goes pig-jumping back to the
line fit to mince whole brigades of Huns with his bare teeth.
X, you will understand, is a very admirable institution, and when we
heard about this Rest Home we were all for it and tried to cultivate
fur on the tongue, capped hocks and cerebral meningitis; but the
Skipper hardened his heart against us and there was nothing doing.
Then one morning MacTavish came over all dithery-like in the lines,
fell up against a post, smashed his wrist-watch and would have
brained himself had that been possible.
He picked himself up, apologised for making a fool of himself before
the horses, patched his scalp with plaster from his respirator,
borrowed my reserve watch "Pretty Polly," and carried on.
"Pretty Polly" can do two laps to any other watch's one without
turning a hair-spring. Externally she looks very much like any other
mechanical pup the Ordnance sells you for eleven francs net; her
secret lies in her spring, which, I imagine, must have been intended
for "Big Ben," but sprang into the wrong chassis by mistake.
At all events as soon as it is wound up it lashes out left and right
with such violence that the whole machine leaps with the shock of its
internal strife and hops about on the table after the manner of a
Mexican dancing bean, clucking like an ostrich that has laid twins.
It will be gathered that my "Pretty Polly" is not the ultimate
syllable in the way of accuracy, but as MacTavish seemed to want her
and had been kind to me in the way of polo-sticks, I handed her over
without a murmur.
The same afternoon MacTavish came over dithery again, dived into a
heap of bricks and knocked himself out for the full count.
We put him to bed and signalled the Vet. The Vet reported that
MacTavish's temperature was well above par and booming. He went on
to state that MacTavish was suffering from P.U.O. (which is Spanish
for "flu") and that he probably wouldn't weather the night.
The Skipper promptly 'phoned O.C. Burials, inviting him to dine next
evening, and Albert Edward wired his tailor, asking what was being
worn in headstones.
William, our Mess President, took up a position by the sick man's
side in hopes he would regain consciousness for long enough to settle
his mess-bill, and the rest of us spent the evening recalling
memories of poor old Mac, his many sterling qualities, etc.
However, next morning a batman poked his head into the Mess and said
could Mr. MacTavish have a little whisky, please, he was fancying it,
and anyway you couldn't force none of that there grool down him not
if you was to use a drenching bit.
At noon the batman was back to say that Mr. MacTavish was fancying a
cigarette now, also a loan of the gramophone and a few cheerful
records.
The Skipper promptly 'phoned postponing O.C. Burials, and Albert
Edward wired his tailor, changing his order to that of a canary
waistcoat.
That evening MacTavish tottered into the Mess and managed to surround
a little soup, a brace of cutlets and a bottle of white wine without
coming over dithery again.
But for all that he was not looking his best; he weaved in his walk,
his eye was dull, his nose hot, his ear cold and drooping, and the
Skipper, gazing upon him, remembered the passage in Part II Orders
and straightway sat down and applied that MacTavish be sent to X at
once, adding such a graphic pen-picture of the invalid (most of it
copied from a testimonial to somebody's backache pills) as to reduce
us to tears and send MacTavish back to his bed badly shaken to hear
how ill he'd been.
The Skipper despatched his pen-picture to H.Q. and forgot all about
it, and so did H.Q. apparently, for we heard nothing further, and in
due course forgot all about it ourselves, and in the meanwhile
MacTavish got back into form, and MacTavish in form is no shrinking
lily be it said.
He has a figure which tests every stitch in his Sam Browne, a bright
blue eye and a complexion which an external application of mixed
weather and an internal application of tawny port has painted the hue
of the beetroot.
Then suddenly, like a bomb from the blue, an ambulance panted up to
the door and presented a H.Q. chit to the effect that the body of
MacTavish be delivered to it at once to bear off to X.
The Skipper at the time was out hacking and Albert Edward was in
charge; he sent an orderly flying to MacTavish, who rolled in from
his tent singing "My Friend John" at the top of his voice and looking
more like an over-fed beetroot than ever.
"Dash it all, I don't want to go to their confounded mortuary," he
shouted; "never felt fitter in my life. I can't go; I won't go!"
"You'll have to," said Albert Edward; "can't let the Skipper down
after that pen-picture he wrote; the Staff would never believe
another word he said. No, MacTavish, my son, you'll have to play the
game and go."
"But, you ass, look at him," wailed the Babe; "look at his ruddy,
ruby, tomato-ketchup, plum-and-apple complexion. What are you going
to do about that?"
"I'll settle his complexion," replied Albert Edward grimly; "tell his
man to toss his tooth-brush into the meat-waggon; and you, Mac, come
with me."
He led the violently protesting MacTavish into the kitchen. The cook
tells me Albert Edward pounded two handfuls of flour into MacTavish's
complexion and filled his eye-sockets up with coal-dust, and I quite
believe the cook, for in five minutes' time I came on Albert Edward
dragging what I at first took to be the body of a dead Pierrot down
the passage towards the waiting ambulance, at the same time exhorting
it to play the game and wobble for the Skipper's sake.
The wretched MacTavish, choking with flour and blinded with
coal-dust, wobbled like a Clydesdale with the staggers.
I saw a scared R.A.M.C. orderly bound out of the car and assist
Albert Edward to hoist MacTavish aboard, trip him up and pin him down
on a stretcher. Then the ambulance coughed swiftly out of sight.
The allotted week passed but no MacTavish came bounding back to us
like a giant refreshed with great draughts of resin, and we grew
anxious; which anxiety did not abate when, in reply to the Skipper's
inquiries, the Rest Home authorities wired denying all knowledge of
him.
Goodness knows what we should have done if a letter from MacTavish
himself had not arrived next morning, to say that he had lain on his
back in the ambulance digging coal-dust out of his eyes and coughing
up flour till the car stopped, not, to his surprise, at the Rest
Home, but at a Casualty Clearing Station.
Some snuffling R.A.M.C. orderlies bore him tenderly to a tent and a
doctor entered, also snuffling. MacTavish is of the opinion that the
whole of the medical staff had P.U.O., and the doctor was the sickest
of the lot and far from reliable.
At all events, on seeing MacTavish's face, he ejaculated a bronchial
"Good Lord!" and tearing MacTavish's tunic open, stuck a trumpet
against his tummy and listened for the ticks.
Apparently he heard something sensational, for he wheezed another
"Good Lord!" and decorated MacTavish with a scarlet label.
Within an hour our hero found himself on board a Red Cross train _en
route_ for the coast.
There were a lot of cheerful wounded on the bus, getting all the soup
and jelly they wanted; but MacTavish got only lukewarm milk and
precious little of that. From scraps of hushed conversation he
caught here and there he gathered that his life hung by a thread.
He was feeling very bewildered and depressed, he said, but,
remembering his duty to the Skipper, played the game and kept body
and soul together on drips of jelly surreptitiously begged from the
cheerful wounded.
Next morning he found himself in hospital in England, where he still
remains. He says he has been promoted from warm milk to cold slops,
but is still liable to die at any moment, he understands.
He has discovered that he was sent home with "galloping heart
disease," but nobody in the hospital can get even a trot out of it,
and boards of learned physicians sit on him all day long, their
trumpets planted on his tummy listening for the ticks.
MacTavish says he thinks it improbable that they ever will hear any
ticks now, for the excellent reason that he threw the cause
thereof--my "Pretty Polly," to wit--out of the window the day he
arrived.
In a postscript he adds that he considers he has played the game far
enough, and that if the Skipper doesn't come and bail him out soon
he'll bite the learned physicians, kiss the nurses, sing "My Friend
John" and disgrace the Regiment for ever.