THE great auk is but a memory; the bittern booms more rarely in our
eastern marshes; and now they tell me Brigadiers are extinct. Handsomest
and liveliest of our indigenous fauna, the bright beady eye, the flirt
of the trench coat-tail through the undergrowth, the glint of red
betwixt the boughs, the sudden piercing pipe--how well I knew them, how
often I have lain hidden in thickets and behind hedgerows to study them
more closely. How inquisitive the creature was, yet how seldom would it
feed from the hand. And now, it seems, they are gone.
Vainly I rack my brains to envisage the manner of their passing. Is
there to be nothing left but silence and a shadow or a specimen in a
dusty case of glass preserved in creosol and stuffed with lime? Or did
not the Brigadiers rather, when they felt their last hour was upon them,
retire like the elephants of the jungle to some distant spot and shuffle
off the mortal coil in the midst of Salisbury Plain or (for so I still
picture it despite the ravages of a rude commercialism) the vast
solitude of Slough?
Or it may be that they underwent some classic metamorphosis, translated
to a rainless paradise, where they dreamed of battalions for ever
inspected and the general salute eternally blown.
"And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes
Who once were brigadiers of infantry
Bask in the sun."
Anyhow, I cannot believe that ex-Brigadiers die. They only fade away.
Fade away, I think, like the Cheshire Cat in _Alice in Wonderland_,
leaving at the last not a grin but a scowl behind them. "_Brigadiers
will fade away_," I imagine, ran the instruction from the Army Council,
"_passing the vanishing point in the following order:--_
(1) _Spurs._
(2) _Field Boots._
(3) _Main body._
(4) _Brass hat._
(5) _Scowl._"
But oh, how they will be missed, with their insatiable hunger for
replies! I remember one in particular, very fierce and black-moustached,
who used to pop up suddenly from behind a Loamshire hedge with an
enormous note-book in his hand and say to unhappy company commanders,
"The situation is so-and-so and so-and-so; now let me hear you give your
orders." And the Company-Commander, who would have liked to read through
_Infantry Training_ once or twice and then hold a sort of inter-allied
conference with his Platoon-Commander, putting the Company
Sergeant-Major in the chair, felt that after frightfulness of this kind
mere actual war would probably be child's-play. And yet they tell me he
was a pleasant enough fellow in the Mess, this Brigadier, and liked good
cooking. Now I come to think of it, he faded away before the War came to
an end. He faded away into a Major-General.
How different from this sort was the type that could always be placated
by a glittering bayonet charge or a thoroughly smart salute! I remember
one of this kind who came charging across the landscape, his Staff
Captain at his heels, to a point where he saw a friend of mine
apparently lost in meditation and sloth. Unfortunately the great man's
horse betrayed him as he tried to jump a low hedge, and, when he had
clambered up again and arrived in a rather tumbled condition to ask
indignantly what had happened to the scouts, "They have established a
number of hidden observation posts," my friend replied, keeping his
presence of mind, "and are making an exact report of everything that
transpires on the enemy's front," and he waved his arm towards the scene
of the catastrophe. It was not thought necessary to examine their notes.
In France Brigadiers were mainly divided into the sort that came round
the front line themselves, and the sort that sent the Brigade-major or
somebody else who had broken out into a frontal inflammation to do it
for them. It is difficult to say which _genus_ was the more alarming.
The first was apt to exhibit its contempt for danger by strolling about
in perilous places for five minutes and leaving them to be shelled in
consequence for a week.
The second sort was apt to issue orders depending for fulfilment on a
faulty map reference or a landmark which had been carelessly removed by
an H.E. shell. One of the most _intransigeant_ of this kind whom I
remember could always, however, be softened by souvenirs; a cast-off
Uhlan's lance or the rifle of a Bosch sniper went far to console him for
the barrenness of a patrol report. I feel sure he must have faded at
Slough.
But it was in battle that their wild appetite for information was most
amazingly displayed. At moments when nobody knew where anybody else was
or whether the ground underneath him was likely to remain in that sector
more than a few moments or be detached and transferred to another, they
would send by telephone or by a runner wild messages for an exact
_resume_ of the situation. It was at such times, I think, that some of
those eminent war correspondents recently knighted would have done
yeoman service in the front line. I can imagine them telephoning
somewhat after this manner, in answer to the querulous voice:--
"All hell has broken loose in front of us. The earth
shivers as if a volcano is beneath our feet. The
pock-marked ridges in the distance are covered with the
advancing waves of field-grey forms. Our boys are going
up happily shouting and singing to the battle. Sorry, I
didn't quite catch what you said about being in touch on
the right. The brazen roar of the cannon is mingled with
the intermittent rattle of innumerable machine guns. Eh,
what? What?"
Yes, I think the Brigadiers would have liked that. But, alas, it could
not be. And now they have gone, with their passion for questions, never
to return, or never till the next A.C.I. cancels the last.
"And now no sacred staff shall break to blossom,
No choral salutation lure to light,"
as SWINBURNE put it; or
"All the birds of the air fell a-sighin' and a-sobbin'
When they heard of the death of poor Cock Robin,"
as No. 1 platoon of A Company used to sing. Ah, well.