Announced by the jangling of the curtain that he had almost brought
down with his heavy suit-case, a cheerful curly-haired officer entered
noisily and dropped into one of the Wardroom arm-chairs. He stretched
his legs out and, lighting a cigarette, leaned back luxuriously.
"Well?" said a chorus of voices, "_well_--how's London?"
The curly-haired one smiled reminiscently. "Still standing, still
standing," he replied. "No place for you though, I'm afraid. You're
none of you good-looking enough to pass as Yanks or Colonials."
"Oh, cut it out. Tell us what it's like. You know, you're the first
one to go there from us for a year, and we want to know."
"What? all about it? All right; chuck a cup of tea across and I'll
give you the special correspondent's sob-stuff. _Aah!_ that's better;
this train-travelling has given me a mouth like--I won't say what.
Well, I'll try and tell you what I thought of it and the people that
live there. I may say at once that they are civilised to the extent
that they'll take English money without complaining about it,
and--_all_ right, I'll get on.
"Well, you know how I went off laden with meat and other cards till I
was bulging, and how I reckoned to find people looking hungry at me as
if they were reckoning what I'd boil down to in a stock-pot? Well, I've
got all these cards still--didn't need 'em. I'd usually left them in my
other coat when I got started on meals, and as they've got the trick of
camouflaging fish and eggs till you don't know what you're eating, it
wasn't worth hunting 'em out. All London seems to live on eggs, and
where the deuce they all come from I don't know; they must be using up
dumps of them. Oh, and another thing, I'd forgotten that in London they
don't grow electric lighters on every bulkhead, and it was lucky I had a
few matches with me. The first day I was stopped by fellers wanting a
light off my cigarette just three times in a dog-watch, but the other
days I didn't get asked at all--I'd lost the country-cousin look, I
s'pose. Men? Yes, there's a fair sprinkling there still, but nothing
under forty, I should say. Yes, there seem to be crowds of women.
Perhaps there are actually more, or it may be that the shortage of men
makes 'em look more; but there do seem to be heaps of them. It just made
me marvel, too, at the extraordinary lack of imagination the women have.
They still wear devilish short skirts, and yet there isn't one in forty
of 'em that has a foot and ankle that one could call it decent to show.
You'd think they'd see one another's defects and get wise, but they
don't. I suppose that now the secret's out about their legs, they reckon
it's too late to hide the truth and they face it out; but I'm surprised
the young ones don't camouflage themselves a bit and get a fair start.
Theatres? Yes; I went through the list, revues and all. I read Arnold
Bennett's account of a music-hall--you know the book? Yes, I read it in
the train going down. Well, I gathered from his description that things
had flashed up a bit since the dear dead days of nineteen-sixteen, and
that I would find myself in a hall of dazzling Eastern et-ceteras; but,
my word! it was like tea at the Vicarage. I don't know what revue Arnold
Bennett found, but I guess I missed it. It's true, I saw one perfectly
_reckless_ lieutenant drop a programme out of a box into the orchestra;
but as the orchestra didn't notice it, and I doubt if the lieutenant did
either, it could hardly be put down to riotous conduct induced by drink
and sensual music. Oh, I noticed one thing--all the theatre programmes
had directions printed as to what to do in case of air-raids during the
performance. They had it printed small and sandwiched in between the
_hats by Suzanne_ and _dresses by Cox_ announcements. I liked that. It
was British and dignified. I'd like to have sent some copies to
Hindenburg. News? Yes, I heard a whole lot, but it was mostly denied in
the papers next morning. It's a queer town for rumours. I think they all
live too close together, and they get hysterical or something--like in
that Frenchman's book, you know, the 'Psychology of Crowds,' or
something like that. They weren't worrying much about the war, though. I
stopped to look at the tape-messages in the club, and there was an
eight-line chit on the board mentioning that the Hun was coming on like
a gale o' wind towards Paris, while the rest of the board had eight
full-length columns on the latest Old Bailey case, and there was another
column coming through on the machine with a crowd waiting for more. No,
I'm _not_ trying to be cynical. I read 'em all, but I hadn't quite got
the London sense of proportion in two days, and it worried me that there
was no more war news coming.
"Cost? Yes, _rather_. I've spent whole heaps of bullion, and I'll have
to ask the Pay for an advance now. It's quite easy; you just exist
and the cash trickles off you. There's not so much of the old 'men in
uniform free' or 'half-price to officers' going now. There aren't many
civilians left, and I guess _they're_ just taking in one another's
washing. Everything that isn't a necessity is double price at least,
and I believe the shopkeepers would like to make breathing a luxury
too. On the whole, I'm glad I only had a few days there. The air's so
foul, you know. Mixture of scent and petrol, I think. Oh but, by the
way, I saw a hansom--a real hansom--in Regent Street. Quite a neat
well-kept one, too. No, nothing new in the way of dresses. Just the
same as nineteen-sixteen, as far as I could see. There may have been
some good-looking faces among the thousands in the West-end streets,
but they were cancelled by the awful legs underneath. I wonder they
ever manage to get married. Well, I saw thousands of that kind of
female--more than one ever saw before; but I met some others who
squared things up in my mind. Ten hours a day and clean the car
herself for one, and oxyacetyline welding eight hours and overtime
for another at two-five a week. Doing it to win the War, and not
because they wanted to or liked it. Made me feel small to be on leave
when I talked to 'em. And then, as I was leaving the hotel, a whole
crowd of Swiss porters and servants, that had been fairly coming the
Field-Marshal over me for three days, came oiling round me for tips,
and pocketed the cash without a word when they got it; and--and--while
they were doing it, a Scotch corporal walked past the taxi with three
wound-stripes on his arm and four notches on his bayonet hilt. It's
all a bit too puzzling for me. As soon as I got settled in one
impression, I'd get jolted out of it by another. Heigho! I'm not sorry
to have gone there to look, and I'm not sorry to be back." He rose,
and moving across the Wardroom, flung open the door of his tiny cabin
and passed in. His voice sounded hollow through the thin partition.
"Hi! outside there--some shaving water _eck dum_," and then a
contented murmur--"Lord! but it's good to be home again."