Albert Edward and I are on detachment just now. I can't mention what
job we are on because HINDENBURG is listening. He watches every move
made by Albert Edward and me and disposes his forces accordingly. Now
and again he forestalls us, now and again he don't. On the former
occasions he rings up LUDENDORFF, and they make a night of it with
beer and song; on the latter he pushes the bell violently for the old
German god.
The spot Albert Edward and I inhabit just now is very interesting;
things happen all round us. There is a tame balloon tied by a string
to the back garden, an ammunition column on either flank and an
infantry battalion camped in front. Aeroplanes buzz overhead in flocks
and there is a regular tank service past the door. One way and another
our present location fairly teems with life; Albert Edward says it
reminds him of London. To heighten the similarity we get bombed every
night.
Promptly after Mess the song of the bomb-bird is heard. The
searchlights stab and slash about the sky like tin swords in a stage
duel; presently they pick up the bomb-bird--a glittering flake of
tinsel--and the racket begins. Archibalds pop, machine guns chatter,
rifles crack, and here and there some optimistic sportsman browns the
Milky Way with a revolver. As Sir I. NEWTON'S law of gravity is still
in force and all that goes up must come down again, it is advisable to
wear a parasol on one's walks abroad.
In view of the heavy lead-fall Albert Edward and I decided to have a
dug-out. We dug down six inches and struck water in massed formation.
I poked a finger into the water and licked it. "Tastes odd," said I,
"brackish or salt or something."
"We've uncorked the blooming Atlantic, that's what," said Albert
Edward; "cork it up again quickly or it'll bob up and swamp us." That
done, we looked about for something that would stand digging into. The
only thing we could find was a molehill, so we delved our way into
that. We are residing in it now, Albert Edward, Maurice and I. We have
called it "_Mon Repos_," and stuck up a notice saying we are inside,
otherwise visitors would walk over it and miss us.
The chief drawback to "_Mon Repos_" is Maurice. Maurice is the
proprietor by priority, a mole by nature. Our advent has more or less
driven him into the hinterland of his home and he is most unpleasant
about it. He sits in the basement and sulks by day, issuing at night
to scrabble about among our boots, falling over things and keeping us
awake. If we say "Boo! Shoo!" or any harsh word to him he doubles
up the backstairs to the attic and kicks earth over our faces at
three-minute intervals all night.
Albert Edward says he is annoyed about the rent, but I call that
absurd. Maurice is perfectly aware that there is a war on, and to
demand rent from soldiers who are defending his molehill with their
lives is the most ridiculous proposition I ever heard of. As I said
before, the situation is most unpleasant, but I don't see what we can
do about it, for digging out Maurice means digging down "_Mon Repos_,"
and there's no sense in that. Albert Edward had a theory that the
mole is a carnivorous animal, so he smeared a worm with carbolic
tooth-paste and left it lying about. It lay about for days. Albert now
admits his theory was wrong; the mole is a vegetarian, he says; he was
confusing it with trout. He is in the throes of inventing an explosive
potato for Maurice on the lines of a percussion grenade, but in the
meanwhile that gentleman remains in complete mastery of the situation.
The balloon attached to our back garden is very tame. Every morning
its keepers lead it forth from its abode by strings, tie it to a
longer string and let it go. All day it remains aloft, tugging gently
at its leash and keeping an eye on the War. In the evening the keepers
appear once more, haul it down and lead it home for the night. It
reminds me for all the world of a huge docile elephant being bossed
about by the mahout's infant family. I always feel like giving the
gentle creature a bun.
Now and again the Bosch birds come over disguised as clouds and spit
mouthfuls of red-hot tracer-bullets at it, and then the observers hop
out. One of them "hopped out" into my horse-lines last week. That is
to say his parachute caught in a tree and he hung swinging, like a
giant pendulum, over my horses' backs until we lifted him down. He
came into "_Mon Repos_" to have bits of tree picked out of him. This
was the sixth plunge overboard he had done in ten days, he told us.
Sometimes he plunged into the most embarrassing situations. On one
occasion he dropped clean through a bivouac roof into a hot bath
containing a Lieutenant-Colonel, who punched him with a sponge and
threw soap at him. On another he came fluttering down from the blue
into the midst of a labour company of Chinese coolies, who immediately
fell on their faces, worshipping him as some heavenly being, and later
cut off all his buttons as holy relics. An eventful life.