ALF CLEANS HIS BUTTONS
When the battalion moved out of the line the appearance of Private
Higgins could not be described as smart. The only person who attempted
to describe it at all was the company sergeant-major; he did it rather
well.
Higgins did not spend the remainder of his tour of duty in the
condition of indecorous discomfort in which he was hauled from the
Glue-Pot. On crawling out of his shell-hole, he first rescued his
trousers with some difficulty from inside his derelict thigh-boots, and
then made his way to the dressing-station--a large dug-out--where he
was dried and his torn jacket was roughly repaired. For the rest of his
time he wore the felt-lined leather jerkin which he had forgotten to
take with him on his former adventure; but as luck would have it he was
not required on any further errand.
The battalion left its trenches--handed over thankfully to the North
Surreys--about midnight, eight days after it had moved in. Its numbers,
in spite of the mildness of Fritz, had been sadly depleted. All
precautions notwithstanding, a large number of men had succumbed to
trench feet, and the remainder could scarcely do more than crawl. They
made their way painfully as far as the reserve trenches, and next day
they reached a village some miles behind the line, where they found
themselves in quite comfortable billets--the men in huts, the officers
in farms and cottages. The hut allotted to "C" Company contained a
complicated erection in wood and wire-netting, which provided two tiers
of bedsteads down almost the entire length of each side. There was,
however, a small space at one end, screened off with waterproof sheets;
this was appropriated to the joint use of the C.S.M. and the C.Q.M.S.
As soon as the battalion was settled in, the usual business began
of repairing the ravages of the trenches and transforming a crew of
ragged, bearded scaramouches back into self-respecting members of a
smart regiment.
Captain Richards paraded his company in front of its billet, and
surveyed it more in sorrow than in anger. He himself and his officers
had managed, in some wonderful way, to turn themselves out as spotless
as if they had just strolled in from Piccadilly. But they had the
advantage over the men of carrying spare suits of clothes in their
valises, and of possessing servants.
"Well, 'C' Company," remarked its Commander. "The quartermaster is
going to take you in hand this afternoon, and I don't envy him his job.
You'll hand in your tin hats and your jerkins, and you'll draw service
caps, badges and shoulder-titles. Those of you who need new things must
take the opportunity of getting them. Private Higgins, for instance,
needs a new tunic."
There was a roar of laughter, for Higgins' misadventure in the
communication trench was the company's latest family joke.
"I see," continued Richards, grinning, "that he's mended his old
one with a piece of rope. Well, that won't do for me after to-day.
To-morrow I expect to see the company something like itself. March 'em
off, Sergeant-Major French; I'll be coming along shortly."
Clothing parade was a lengthy business. Most of the battalion seemed
to need clothes, and the quartermaster's overworked staff appeared
to regard each new application as a personal insult. At last Higgins
obtained his new tunic, and started back to his billet with this
and his other issues. On the way he passed a small cottage marked
"Estaminet"; he entered and indulged in a miniature orgy of very light
French beer.
It was getting late when he reached the billet, and in order to make
the most of the fading light he sat down outside the hut to bring the
buttons of his new jacket to a condition fit to be inspected by C.S.M.
French on the following morning.
He made an excellent job of the top button and then, recharging his
tooth-brush (presented to him for quite another purpose by a paternal
government) with polish, he prepared to tackle the second. But the
instant he touched it there was a sudden roaring sound, and a strange
hot wind sprang up, tossing into the air a swirling column of dust
which half choked Alf and wholly blinded him. He dropped tooth-brush,
polish and tunic to the ground and clapped his hands to his agonized
eyes.
The wind died down again as suddenly as it had come, and the swirling
dust settled; and there came to Alf, still struggling to empty his
streaming eyes of pieces of grit, an eerie sense that he was not alone.
Some presence was beside him--something that he must clear his eyes and
look at, yet dreaded to see.
Suddenly a sepulchral voice spoke.
"What wouldst thou have?" it said.
Alf felt that he must _see_, or go mad. With his two hands he opened
an inflamed eye--and with great difficulty restrained himself from
uttering a loud yell of terror. He was confronted by a huge and hideous
being of a type he had believed to exist only in the disordered
imaginations of story-tellers. The being, seeing that he had Alf's
undivided--even petrified--attention, bowed impressively.
"What wouldst thou have?" he repeated in a deep, booming voice. "I am
ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of any who have that
Button in their possession; I, and the other slaves of the Button."
"Gawd!" exclaimed Alf, in horror. "Strike me pink!"
The strange being looked surprised, but bowed yet lower.
"To be stricken pink? Verily my Lord's request is strange!
Nevertheless, his wish is my command."
He disappeared.
Alf stared open-mouthed at the spot where the apparition had stood.
Then in a sudden panic at what he took to be the effect of French beer
after the enforced abstemiousness of the trenches, he rushed into the
hut and rolled himself up in his blanket. He felt at once aggrieved
and frightened; for he was not drunk nor even exhilarated, and yet he
had got to the far more advanced stage of "seeing things." He gave no
answer to any enquiries after his health nor any other sign of life
until the orderly sergeant came round at _réveillé_ next morning.
"Now then, 'Iggins, show a leg," said the N.C.O.
Higgins had been awake for some time. He felt all right, and had
already assured himself by a cautious glance round that he was no
longer seeing demons. He sat up, and flung his blankets cheerfully from
him.
"Right-o, sergeant," he said.
The sergeant's eyes bulged. All that could be seen of Higgins--his
face, hands and the part of his neck and chest not covered by his
shirt--was one glorious shade of salmon-pink, shining and glossy as if
from the application of a coat of Mr. Aspinall's best enamel.
"Come out o' that, quick!" said Sergeant Anderson, retreating hastily.
"Corporal Spink, take this man along to the M.O. at once--don't wait
for sick parade. It's measles and scarlet fever and smallpox and
nettlerash all mixed up, you've got, me lad. 'Ere, keep yer distance."
The regimental M.O., nonplused and frightened, at once got into touch
with the Field Ambulance and had Higgins--now in the last stage of
panic and convinced that his end was near--removed to a Casualty
Clearing Station. Then he descended on "C" Company's billet with some
pungent form of chemical disinfectant, and rendered that erstwhile
happy home utterly uninhabitable. The company, spluttering and
swearing, tumbled out and ate its breakfast shivering in the open. If
threats and curses could kill, Alf would have been a dead man fifty
times over.
On his arrival at the C.C.S. his clothes were taken from him, and he
was isolated for observation in a small ward; and a keen young medical
practitioner named Browne--temporary captain in the R.A.M.C.--undertook
his extraordinary case.
On finding that he did not immediately die, Alf recovered his normal
spirits, and for a week he thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was a public
character--all the medical officers within reach came and shook their
heads over him. He felt perfectly well; his pulse and temperature were
from the first normal; but his hue remained undimmed. An old doctor
who chanced to arrive when Higgins was having his midday meal, got out
his notebook and entered "Abnormally voracious appetite" as a salient
symptom of the new disease; but this was a mistake. In fact, no further
symptoms of any kind developed; and in the end Captain Browne, in
despair, determined to give up the case and to send Alf to see a noted
skin-specialist at the Base.
Accordingly Higgins' clothes (smelling strongly of some distressing
fumigatory) were brought to him, and he was told to get ready for his
journey. Observing with displeasure that the effect of fumigation had
been to turn his brasswork nearly black, he produced cleaning materials
and got to work to remedy this.
At the first touch he gave to his second button, once more that awful
apparition arose before him, and the same sepulchral voice was heard.
"What wouldst thou have? I am ready to serve thee as thy slave, and the
slave of any who have that Button in their possession; I, and the other
slaves of the Button."
Alf's mind was whirling. He had by now half forgotten his previous
sight of this supernatural visitor, or rather had accounted for it
satisfactorily in his mind. But no theory of intoxication could hold
good on this occasion, for Alf's only drink for the past week had been
tea. The emotion uppermost in his mind, however, was fear that the
doctor might come in and find the being there. He therefore sat up in
bed and gasped out:
"'Op it!"
With a puzzled expression on his hideous countenance, the being began
slowly and with obvious reluctance to disappear. He seemed to be
doubting the evidence of his ears.
"'Ere, I say," called out Alf suddenly, as an idea struck him. "Arf a
mo'!"
The being, who was still just visible as a faint murkiness in the
atmosphere, took shape again with alacrity.
"What wouldst thou have?" he began once more. "I am ready to obey thee
as thy slave and the slave...."
"Yes," interrupted Alf, who was in terror of the possible advent of the
doctor. "You said all that before. What I want to know is, was it you
that turned me this ruddy color?"
"Verily, O Master, the color is not the color of blood; and indeed,
with thine own lips thou didst command me to strike thee pink!"
"Lumme!" said Alf, light breaking in upon him at last. "Well, if that's
your idea of a joke, it ain't mine, that's all. You can just blinkin'
well think again, if you want to make _me_ laugh. See?"
"Thy wish," said the Spirit, to whom Alf's idiomatic speech was just
so much gibberish, "is my command. What wouldst thou have? I am ready
to obey...."
"Stop it," said Alf in acute apprehension, his eye on the door. "Didn't
you 'ear what I said? Put me right, for the Lord's sake, and then 'op
it, quick. I can 'ear the doc. comin'."
Captain Browne entered. He was in a very despondent frame of mind.
He was a keen and ambitious young man, and his failure to make any
impression on Higgins' condition had been a great blow to his pride.
Sorely against his will he was now about to own himself defeated.
He closed the door behind him.
There was an instant's pause. Then the officer, without a change of
countenance, spoke quietly.
"Ah!" he said. "Then my last treatment _has_ had the effect I hoped
for. It's a cure. You needn't go to the Base, after all."
The cure of Higgins' malady brought to Captain Browne much honor and
renown. He became the first and sole authority on what came to be known
as "Browne's Disease"; several thoughtful essays from his pen appeared
in the foremost medical journals, detailing the course of the disease,
the method of its cure, and the mental processes which had led to the
evolution of that cure. He was asked to contribute an article on the
same subject to a medical encyclopædia. Finally, he was mentioned in
dispatches.
An order from the distant heights of the surgeon-general's staff was
circulated to all medical officers, ordering them to forward weekly a
return of the number of men under their care suffering from Browne's
Disease. But neither they nor the distinguished inventor himself could
find any. This was the more unfortunate because, if only he had been
able to find another authentic case of the malady, he might have looked
forward to Harley Street and a fashionable practice after the war. But
in any case, his name, if not his fortune, was made.
As for Alf, he returned at once to his battalion, where he gave
unsatisfactory answers to all questions. He was a man of little
imagination, but it seemed that he was now in his own case beginning
to link up cause with effect. At all events he refrained for as long
as possible from cleaning his second tunic-button, and might have been
seen now and again regarding it with awe not unmixed with alarm.