EUSTACE ORDERS A BATH
All next day Bill Grant was conscious that Alf was not his usual self.
He seemed strangely preoccupied and absent-minded; and when even
dinner-time failed to arouse him, Bill became seriously alarmed.
As soon as the midday meal was done the two men sought their private
retreat. They lit their pipes and smoked for some time in a silence,
broken at last by a heavy sigh from Alf.
"What's up with yer?" demanded Bill suddenly. "Is it yer stummick?"
"I'm all right," answered Alf in a voice of hopeless dejection.
There was another long silence, once more terminating in a sigh.
"Look 'ere," said Bill, getting up in disgust, "if you feel as bad as
all that, for 'eving's sake 'ave a good cry and get it over, an' let's
'ave the old 'ome 'appy once again. What the 'ell's up?"
Alf did not answer this question, except by asking another.
"Bill," he asked with a forced lightness of tone which quite failed to
conceal the earnestness it covered. "What did yer think of Eustace's
taste in females?"
Bill turned and looked at him with a suddenly comprehending eye. Alf
wriggled uneasily under his gaze.
"So that's it, is it?" commented Bill. "Poor old Alf!" He gave a long
whistle.
"What'd you think of--of 'er, Bill?"
"Well," was the honest reply, "that kind o' fine lady ain't my style at
all. I like a girl as can back-answer yer a bit. But she was a reg'lar
daisy for looks."
Alf heaved another tremendous sigh.
"Gawd!" he exclaimed. "I can't 'elp thinkin' 'ow awful it'd 'ave been
if that shell as 'it Mr. Allen 'ad come over a bit sooner an' done
_'er_ in!"
He fell silent, lost in contemplation of this terrible idea. Bill
was thinking deeply. He fixed a far-away gaze on Alf, reducing that
warrior, very self-conscious in the unaccustomed rôle of love-sick
swain, to the last pitch of embarrassment. When at last Bill came back
to earth his words were startling in the extreme.
"Well," he said casually. "If that's 'ow you feel, why don't you marry
the girl?"
"What?... Me?... Marry 'oo?"
"Eustace's female, whatever 'er name is."
"You're barmy! Might as well tell me to marry a royal princess straight
orf."
"Well, an' why not, if you want to?" Bill was quite unmoved. "Eustace
fixed it up for Aladdin--why not for Alf 'Iggins?"
"Yes, but--Aladdin, 'e was a prince 'isself."
"Not to start with 'e wasn't, an' if you married a princess you'd be a
prince, too. Prince 'Iggins--it'd look fine on a brass plate. Now look
'ere, Alf, my lad, yer just wastin' yer time. You don't seem to 'ave no
idea what a lot you could do with Eustace. If _I_ 'ad a pet spook I'd
use 'im a sight better'n what you do. Why don't you stop the blinkin'
war? Get Kaiser Bill over 'ere, and...."
"Once an' for all," interposed Alf with firmness, "I ain't goin' to
mix meself up in nothing o' that sort. I knows enough to keep clear
o' what's too 'igh for me. I'm a plain man, I am. Besides, Eustace
ain't to be trusted. 'E'd be sure to make a muck of it an' get me into
trouble some'ow."
Bill abandoned this topic for the time being with reluctance; the idea
of kidnaping the Kaiser was the cherished child of his brain. But he
knew that Alf when obstinate was quite impervious to argument; he
therefore returned to the original question.
"Any'ow," he said. "If you want to marry that girl, Eustace'll manage
it for yer. It was 'is job in peace-time--'e'll thank yer for a chance
to get back to it. As I says, Aladdin married a princess, an' 'e wasn't
no great specimen of a man any more'n what you are. I remember 'is
mother was a washerwoman by the name o' Twankey, in the pantomime."
"Really?" asked Alf with sudden interest. "Why, my good ole mother
takes in washin', too."
He seemed much cheered by this striking similarity between himself and
his prototype. For the first time he seemed to realize that Bill's
suggestion might be something more than idle verbiage.
"S'posin' you was me, then," he asked. "'Ow'd you set about the
business? I ain't got no idea of this 'ere game."
"Well, I ain't exactly thought it out meself, but the first thing to
do's to get back to Blighty."
"That does me in for a start," said Alf hopelessly.
"Not a bit. What about our month's re-engagement leave? It's five
years next month since you an' me joined the Terriers, an' the Captain
says 'e's applied for it, an' we'll get it in time. May be a month or
two late, but we'll get it all right. Tell yer what I'll do, though.
There's a ole lady in Blighty what sends me books an' papers an'
things. I'll get 'er to send me the book about Aladdin, an' we'll see
'ow 'e worked the trick. P'raps we'll pick up a 'int or two that way.
But you trust to Eustace an' me. We'll put it all right for you, as
soon as we get our leave."
Accordingly a letter to the old lady in Blighty was composed and
dispatched that same afternoon.
The glittering prospect before him filled Alf with as much apprehension
as elation. The passion inspired in him by Isobel was a desire of the
moth for the star--a distant worship of a goddess who had vouchsafed
him one brief vision of her beauty and had then vanished beyond his ken
forever. But Bill's practical common sense had changed all that. Alf
found himself called upon to readjust his mental horizon, and to gaze
upon a new prospect in which his goddess appeared suddenly changed to
mortal form and proportions.
He could not accustom himself all at once to the new conditions. He
felt sure that there must be "a catch" in the idea somewhere.
"Look 'ere," he said, after profound cogitation. "D'you mean to tell me
as anything that Eustace can do'll make _'er_ walk out with _me_?"
"'Course I do," said Bill confidently. "Look 'ere, now; s'pose you go
to 'er an' say, 'I'm a millionaire, an' I've got palaces an' jools, an'
'orses, an'--oh, everything I want'--d'yer think any female's goin' to
refuse all that, if you was as ugly as sin? Not on yer life. She'll eat
out of yer 'and, you'll see."
But Bill Grant's cynicism failed to convince Alf, who shook his head
despondently. Then, with characteristic philosophy, since none of
these strange and wonderful things could begin to happen to him until
his month's leave (itself only a happy possibility) came through, he
dismissed the whole affair from his mind for the time being.
The battalion finished its turn in the trenches without further
casualties, and once more prepared to move back to rest billets. The
future was uncertain; but it did not seem likely that this respite
would be of long duration. The battle of Arras had begun, and all along
the line there was work to be done. At any moment the division might be
called upon to trek to the Arras district, or to fill some unexpected
gap elsewhere; so Colonel Enderby, on the day before the 5th Battalion
marched out, sent a certain Sergeant Oliver before them with orders
to make arrangements whereby his battalion on leaving the line might
lose no time in making itself clean and tidy once more. To put it more
simply, he told him to rig up some baths.
In "C" Company Lieutenant Allen's disappearance had caused few actual
changes, although Captain Richards missed his cheery help and sound
judgment at every turn. No officer had appeared from England as yet
to fill his place, and No. 9 Platoon was now under the sole charge of
Sergeant Lees, who ruled it with a rod of iron.
On the morning of the move the autocrat was in high good humor.
"Pack yer traps up, boys," he said. "It's good-by to the line to-day.
Please 'Eaven, you'll all get a 'ot bath to-morrow."
"'Ear that, Bill?" asked Alf in delight. "I'm just about fed up with
the line. Think o' gettin' into a billet again!"
"Umph," said Bill. "We won't be any better orf in a billet than in
our dug-out, anyway. On'y thing _I_ wanter get back for is to 'ave
something to drink, since you're so mean with Eustace. If _I_ 'ad a
pet spook I wouldn't be that way, I can tell yer."
"I can't 'elp it," said Alf, resenting the imputation of meanness, but
adamantine in his determination not to risk Eustace's displeasure again.
"Huh!" said Bill. There was a world of meaning in this monosyllable,
and none of it was complimentary to Alf.
The 5th Battalion was far enough back from the front line to be safely
relieved by daylight. In consequence, the relieving battalion arrived
up to time, and Alf and Bill were well on their way by eleven o'clock.
So long as it was in the shelled area, the battalion marched by
platoons, with a space of about a hundred yards between each body and
the next. Once the danger limit was passed, however, it was closed up
again for economy of road space.
At about four-thirty in the afternoon, worn and weary, the men
approached a pleasant village and sighed contentedly to see a little
group of four khaki figures awaiting them. These were the company
quartermaster-sergeants, whose job is to look after the feeding of
their companies at all times and their housing when out of the line.
"Quarters" is by training an autocrat and by hereditary reputation a
scoundrel, but when he is seen waiting to show his men into its happy
but temporary homes at the end of a long march, he is the most popular
man in the company.
As Captain Richards rode in at the head of his cohort, C.Q.M.S. Piper
came up and explained to him what splendid billets he had secured, what
enormous trouble he had had to secure any billets at all, and how well
his own compared with those of the other companies. Along the road,
the other C.Q.M.S.'s might have been seen, each giving his own company
commander precisely similar information. Each platoon was then settled
into its particular mud barn by its own officer, while little Shaw, as
subaltern of the day (otherwise known as Orderly Dog), bustled round to
the traveling cookers to ascertain from the sergeant cook how soon a
hot meal would be forthcoming.
When this repast was over Alf and Bill found themselves told off as
units in a blanket-carrying party, after which they turned in and slept
the sleep of the thoroughly unjust for about twelve hours.
Next morning, after breakfast, Captain Richards paraded his company,
and as usual after coming out of the line, lectured them on their
appearance.
"However," he concluded, "you'll have no excuse if you turn up
to-morrow dirty. Sergeant Oliver has got some baths going in the back
yard of the 'Rayon d'Or' in Aberfeldy Street; and you'll go down there
by sections, beginning at ten o'clock. And I'll hold a dam' strict
inspection at half-past three--so look out!"
In due course, Corporal Greenstock paraded his section, containing
Privates Higgins and Grant, and marched it down Dunoon Street, through
Piccadilly Circus into Aberfeldy Street. There in a cloud of steam
they found Sergeant Oliver, whose military career at the front was
divided between improvising baths for the battalion when it came out
of the line, and supplying facilities for the drying of socks when in
it. The bath on this occasion was an enormous wooden tub, capable of
holding four men at a time. The sergeant and his satellites were busy
keeping a veritable furnace going beneath a boiler which several gloomy
defaulters constantly refilled from a well nearby. One clean fill of
water was the allowance for each section, and by the time the water was
emptied out it had become only less thick than the mud of the trenches
they had just left.
The whole arrangement reflected the greatest credit on Sergeant Oliver,
considering that when he had arrived at the "Rayon d'Or" neither tub
nor boiler had been there. Whence and by whose permission they had been
procured were questions which the colonel had carefully refrained from
asking. But the sybaritic soul of Bill Grant clamored for something
better still. He drew Alf on one side and whispered. Alf shook his
head. Bill became more earnest; Higgins hesitated--and was lost. Both
men slipped quietly out of the bath-house while Corporal Greenstock,
taking the best of the water by right of seniority, was performing his
ablutions.
It was a very quiet village, sparsely inhabited. Alf and Bill soon
found a large farmyard in which, remote from public view, stood a
dilapidated barn.
"This'll do fine!" said Bill. "There's nobody living in the
'ouse--we'll be as safe as the Pay Corps 'ere."
"I don't know," objected Alf. "What about that 'aystack in the loft?
That must belong to some one."
"Well, 'ooever it belongs to, they don't live 'ere, an' we can keep a
look-out in case any one comes. Go on, ring up ole Eustace. You won't
find a better place."
Alf rubbed his Button.
"See that barn, Eustace?" he asked, before the djinn had time to begin
his usual formula. "Well, put us a real nice bath inside it."
"O Master, behold, it is done!"
Eustace vanished, looking pleased. "Real nice baths" were entirely in
accordance with the Aladdin tradition.
The two Tommies turned towards the barn, and stood lost in amazement.
The building was outwardly as dilapidated as before, but inside it was
all light and color and perfumed magnificence. Marble pillars veiled
by silken hangings stood just inside the broken mud walls, and through
the hangings could be seen just so much as to hint at further splendors
beyond.
"Lumme!" said Alf, as soon as he could speak. "Why is 'e always so
blinkin' 'olesale? 'E'll be givin' the 'ole show away, one o' these
days. What's to be done now, Bill? 'Ave 'im come back again an' make
'im clear away the 'ole caboodle, I s'pose?"
"I s'pose so," said Bill reluctantly. "I s'pose so. Seems a pity, but
... 'ullo!"
He broke off.
The silken hangings had been suddenly drawn back by two enormous
negroes, clad in sumptuous and glittering uniforms; a spacious hall was
thus revealed, in which a crowd of beautiful female slaves in marvelous
though rather scanty oriental draperies was waiting.
"Goo' Lord! The 'Ippodrome Chorus!" said Grant in an awed voice, his
protests forgotten. The most beautiful of the slaves came forward, and
paused just inside the pillared entrance, a smile of invitation upon
her lips.
"'Ere," said Bill. "This is goin' to be a bit of all right. We mustn't
miss this. One of us'll 'ave to keep guard while the other 'as 'is
bath. Toss for 'oo goes first, see?--You call!"
"'Eads," said Alf.
"Tails it is," replied Bill with great satisfaction. "I'm goin' to bath
first. 'Arf an hour each, see?"
He entered the building, and the slaves clustered about him. Then the
negroes drew the curtains, and Alf saw him no more.
Bill, highly gratified by his reception, was led through the entrance
hall into another lofty chamber, wonderfully built of different-colored
marbles. From one end of this chamber came the pleasant sound of
running water, where a little fountain flowed into a bath sunk into
the floor, and entered by a flight of marble steps. By some invisible
device sufficient water was allowed to flow out to keep the bath always
full to a uniform depth. From it arose a faint cloud of steam, fragrant
and scented.
The leader of the slaves led Bill to a divan and bowed profoundly.
"Thank you, my dear," said Bill. "This'll do me a treat. Now, if you'll
just take yer friends away and wait outside, I'll be with yer in 'arf a
tick."
But the lady seemed neither to understand him nor to have any intention
of going. She signed to two of her following, who came forward and
unlaced Grant's boots. She herself began daintily to unbutton his tunic.
This was too much for the scandalized Bill.
"'Ere," he said, leaping suddenly to his feet. "This 'as gone far
enough. None of yer disrespectable foreign ways for me! Why, I've never
been washed by a female since my old mother used to give me a bath when
I was a nipper! 'Ere, 'op it--skedaddle!"
Bill's remarks were not understood, but his gesture of dismissal was
unmistakable. The slaves made each a low obeisance and retired; the
face of the leader wore so obvious an air of pained astonishment that
Bill felt he owed her some kind of reparation.
"It's all right, Alice," he called. "Wait outside for me, an' I'll let
yer brush me 'air arterwards."
Left alone, Bill undressed; he examined with profound suspicion the
silver bowls of rich unguents which stood at one end of the bath; and
then, extracting from his tunic-pocket a weary-looking cake of soap, he
plunged into the water and prepared to give himself up to the enjoyment
of the most luxurious moment that life had yet afforded him.
Meanwhile Alf, keeping watch outside, had begun to find time hang heavy
on his hands. The farmyard was utterly deserted--only in the building
into which he had seen Bill disappear was there any sign of life. He
lounged into the road, cursing the fate which had given Bill the first
choice, and wondering whether after all the chance of discovery was
great enough to make his lonely vigil worth while. He debated this
point for some time, and had almost made up his mind to chance it and
join Bill forthwith, when he heard his name called.
"'Ere! 'Iggins!"
He looked up the road apprehensively. Two men of his own section had
turned a corner and were bearing down upon him. Panic-stricken, he
dashed into the farmyard and shouted for Bill. There was no response.
Feverishly he felt for his Button and rubbed it.
"Eustace," he said in a trembling voice, "cart all that away--quick!
An' then 'op it yerself. Look slippy!"
Bill Grant had just felt the warm, soft water close over his body--had
just begun to realize a delicious sense of lightness and rest which
pervaded his whole frame--when everything about him seemed to fade into
smoke and disappear. The marble bath, the stately hall, the water, the
silken hangings, all vanished in a flash, and he found himself, naked
and cold, lying on the cobbled floor of an exceedingly well-ventilated
French barn. Worst of all, his clothes had disappeared with the rest.
Outside in the yard he could see Alf signing to him in the greatest
agitation; he made a dash for the haystack in the loft, and had just
reached its sanctuary when he heard voices below him. Peeping through a
crack in the loft floor he could see Denham and Walls, the two privates
whose untimely appearance had upset Alf so completely.
"Corp'ril sent us for yer, Alf," explained Walls. "Says we got to bring
yer back under escort for bilkin' yer bath."
"He also wished us to secure Grant," added Private Denham, a youth who
was cultivating a refined accent with a view to subsequent application
for a commission.
"Well, 'e ain't 'ere, me lord," answered Alf shortly. "I'll come right
away. I was just comin', any'ow."
Unaware of the tragic loss of Bill's clothes, Alf was only anxious to
get his captors away from the spot and to give his pal a chance of
appearing clothed again and in his right mind as soon as might be.
Bill heard their voices die away, and despairingly reviewed his
position. The hay, with which he was obliged to cover himself for
warmth, tickled his bare body cruelly. He was too far from his billet
to think of trying to return there in his present condition, even if
modesty had allowed. His clothes were irretrievably lost until Alf
should come back that way, bringing the Button. Until Higgins realized
that something was wrong and came in search of him, Bill must remain an
outcast, naked and ashamed. He made himself a nest in the softest part
of the hay and settled himself down to wait.
After a time he dozed off; he was recalled to himself by the sound of
a footstep below. It paused at the bottom of the ladder leading to the
loft.
"Alf!" said Bill in a stage whisper.
"_Qui va la?_" answered a strange voice--an old, quavery voice,
apparently female. Bill curled himself into his nest of hay and lay
perfectly still. The owner of the voice, having listened for some time,
apparently decided that Bill's greeting had been a delusion of the
senses and began painfully and wheezily to climb the ladder. Through a
layer of hay, Bill's eye commanded the loft door. His visitor was an
elderly Frenchwoman with a pitch-fork, evidently the owner of the hay.
She began to fork the hay down with surprising vigor for one so frail.
Bill lay close as a maggot in a nut; but unfortunately, at her sixth
prod, the old lady dug her weapon into one of the tenderest parts of
his undraped anatomy, and Bill sprang up with an eldritch scream. Naked
as he was, and festooned and bristling with hay, he was a startling
apparition. The old Frenchwoman gave forth a yell as if all the devils
in hell were after her, and clambered down the ladder with the speed of
a cat. By some miracle she preserved her footing till she was halfway
down the ladder; but then her feet slipped and she shot ignominiously
on to her own hay. Bill thought for a moment that she had hurt herself;
but a second later he heard her wooden shoes on the cobbles outside as
she took to her heels and ran for her life.
Bill, shivering, returned gloomily to his hay. The fat was in the fire
now, without a doubt. Even if she did not inform the colonel, the old
lady was sure to alarm the villagers; and what they might do to him
Bill hardly dared imagine. He lay shivering with cold and fright. After
a time he seemed to hear stealthy footsteps. He determined that his
only chance was to give himself up and throw himself on the mercy of
his captors. He stood up, and shook himself free of the hay.
A voice below spoke--Alf's voice.
"Bill!" it said.
* * * * * * *
Half an hour later Bill stood before Sergeant Lees.
"Ho," said that autocrat. "'Ere you are. Bilked yer bath, you 'ave, so
I 'ear, an' missed the Captain's inspection; an' the British soldier's
first dooty is to be clean."
"I got a better bath in the village, sergeant. Didn't think you'd
mind," said Bill desperately.
"Ho, did yer? Don't seem to 'ave done yer much good. 'Ave yer seen
yerself?"
The sergeant handed him a shaving-mirror. Grant studied his features in
silence. His adventures in the hay had completely destroyed the effects
of his bath. His face was streaked and mottled with black dust till he
looked like a dissipated nigger.
"No, my lad," said the sergeant grimly. "That yarn's like you--it
don't wash. You'll report to Sergeant Oliver to-morrer an' act as
bath-orderly for the rest o' the week."