looked out of the window along the white road to Chalons-sur-Marne, four
miles away. Between the poplar trees he could catch glimpses of it, and
the river wound by its side, a broad ribbon of polished silver. From the
road there rose, here and there, clouds of dust, telling of some battery
or column on the move. The square of the little village, where he had
lived for close on forty years, was crowded with German troops; the
river was dirtied by hundreds of Germans, washing off the dust and
blood; the inns echoed to German laughter and German songs, and, even as
he looked, someone hurled a tray of glasses out of the window of the
Lion d'Or into the street. His blood boiled with hate of the invading
hosts that had so rudely aroused the sleepy, peaceful village, and he
felt his self-control slipping, slipping....
"Get me some food," said the German suddenly. "We have hardly had one
decent meal since your dogs of soldiers began running. Bring food and
wine at once, so that I may go on and help to wipe the French and
British scum from off the earth."
The insult was too much for Gaston Baudel. "May I be cursed," he
shouted, "if I lift hand or foot to feed you and your like. I hate you
all, for did you not kill my own father, when your soldiers overran
France forty-four years ago! Go and find food elsewhere."
Von Scheldmann laughed to himself, amused at the Frenchman's rage. He
leant out of the window, and called to his servant and another man, who
were seated on the doorstep outside.
"Tie this fighting cock up with something," he ordered, "and go to see
if there is anyone else in the house."
An unarmed schoolmaster is no even match for two armed and burly
Germans. Gaston Baudel kicked and struggled as he had never done
before, but he was old and weak, his eyes were watery through much
reading, and his arm had none of the strength of youth left in it. In a
few seconds he lay gasping on the floor, while a German, kneeling on
him, tied his hands behind his back with strips of his own bedsheets.
"Now, you pig," said von Scheldmann when the soldiers had gone off to
search the house, "remember that you are the conquered dog of a
conquered race, and that my sword thirsts for French blood," and he
added meaning to his words by drawing his weapon and pricking the
schoolmaster's thin legs with it. "If I don't get food in a few minutes,
I shall have to run this through your body."
Gaston Baudel had heard too much of war to put any trust in what we call
"civilisation," which is, at best, merely a cloak that hides the savage
beneath. He knew that the command to kill and pillage was more than
enough to bring forth all the latent passions which man has tried to
conceal since the days when he first clothed himself in skins; that it
was no idle threat on the part of the German officer. He lay, then, in
silence, on the floor of his own schoolroom, until the two soldiers
returned, dragging between them the terrified Rosine, his old
housekeeper.
"Are you the schoolmaster's servant?" asked von Scheldmann, in French.
Rosine nodded, for no words would come to her.
"Well, bring me the best food and wine in the house at once, or your
master will suffer for it."
Rosine glanced at Gaston Baudel, who nodded to her as well as his
position would allow him to. With tears in her eyes, the old servant
hurried off to her kitchen to prepare the meal.
"Tie the schoolmaster down to that chair," ordered the German officer,
"and place him opposite me, so that he may see how much his guest enjoys
his lunch."
Thus they sat, the host and the guest, face to face across the little
deal table near the window. The sun shone down on the clean cloth and
the blood-coloured wine, and on the schoolmaster's grey hair. In the
shade cast by the apple tree outside, sat the German, now drinking, now
glancing mockingly at his unwilling host. The meal was interrupted by an
orderly, who came in with a note.
Von Scheldmann read it, and swore. "In five minutes we parade," he said,
"to follow on after your cowardly dogs of _poilus_. Here's a health to
the new rulers of France! Here's to the German Empire!" and he leant
across the table towards the schoolmaster. "Drink, you dog," he said,
"drink to my toast," and he held his glass close to the other's lips.
Gaston Baudel hesitated for a moment. Then he suddenly jerked his head
forward, and, with his chin, knocked the glass out of the German's hand.
As the wine splashed over the floor, von Scheldmann leaped to his feet.
"Swine!" he shouted. "It is lucky for you that your wine was good and
has left me in a kind mood, otherwise you would certainly die for that
insult. As it is, you shall but lose your ears, and I shall benefit the
world by cutting them off. If you move an inch I shall have to run my
sword through your heart."
He lifted his sword, and brought it down twice. Then he called to his
servant and hastened out into the sunlit street, leaving Gaston Baudel
tied to his chair, with the warm blood running down each side of his
face.
II
Six days later, shortly before the middle of September, an unwonted
noise in the street brought the old schoolmaster from his breakfast. He
walked down the little flagged path of the garden to the gate, and
looked up and down the road. By the green, in the square, a group of
villagers were talking and gesticulating, and from the direction of
Ecury came the deep rumble of traffic and the sound of heavy firing.
The schoolmaster called to one of the peasants. "He, Jeanne," he cried.
"What is the news?"
"The Boches are coming back, M. Baudel," said Jeanne Legrand. "They are
fleeing from our troops, and will be passing through here, many of them.
Pray God they may be in too much of a hurry to stop!" And her face grew
anxious and frightened.
Old Gaston Baudel stepped out of his garden, and joined the group in the
square. "Courage, mes amies," he said. "Even if they do stay awhile,
even if our homes are shelled, what does it matter? France is winning,
and driving the Germans back. That at any rate, is good news."
"All the same," said fat Madame Roland, landlady of the Lion d'Or, "if
they break any more of my glasses, I shall want to break my last bottle
of wine over their dirty heads." And she went off to hide what remained
of her liqueurs and champagne under the sacking in the cellar.
"Let us all go back to our homes," counselled Gaston Baudel, "to hide
anything of value. Even I, with this bandage round my head, can hear how
swiftly they are retiring. There will, alas! be no school to-day. May
our brave soldiers drive the devils from off our fair land of France."
Even as he spoke, the first transport waggons came tearing down the
road, and swung northward over the river. Away in the morning haze, the
infantry could be seen--dark masses stumbling along the white
road--till a convoy of motor lorries hid them from view.
Gaston Baudel sat down in his stone-paved schoolroom to await the
passing of the Germans, and to correct the tasks of his little pupils.
He had given them a _devoir de style_ to write on the glory of France,
and, as he read the childish, ill-spelt prophecies of his country's
greatness, he laughed, for the Germans were in retreat, the worst of the
anxiety was over, and Paris was saved. And, hour by hour, he listened to
the rumble of cannon, the rattle of transport waggons and ambulances,
and the heavy tramp of tired-out soldiers on the dusty road.
Suddenly he heard the clank of boots coming up his little garden path,
and a large figure loomed in the doorway. A German officer, covered with
dirt, entered the room, and threw himself down in a chair.
"You still here, earless dog?" he said, and the schoolmaster recognised
his tormentor of a week ago. "Give me something to take with me, and at
once. I have no time to stop, but I shall certainly kill you this time
if you don't bring me food, and more of that red wine."
Gaston Baudel glanced towards the drawer where he kept his
revolver--though he would have never used it against any number of
burglars--but a sudden idea came to him, and he checked his movement.
With a few muttered words, he hastened off to the kitchen to get food
for the German.
"Rosine," he said, "cut a sandwich for that German dog, and then run
into my room and fetch the black sealing wax from my desk."
When she had gone off to obey him, Gaston Baudel opened a bottle of red
wine and poured a little away. Then, fetching a small glass-stoppered
bottle from his room, he emptied the contents--pure morphia--into the
wine and recorked the bottle.
"So much," he said to himself, "for the doctor and his drugs. He may
have told me how much to dilute it to deaden the pain of my ears, but he
gave me no instructions about dosing Germans. They have strong stomachs;
let them have strong drink."
But as he sealed the cork and mouth of the bottle, to allay any
suspicions the German might have, a thought came to him. Was he not
committing murder? Was he not taking away God's gift of life from a
fellow creature? Unconsciously he touched the bandage that covered his
mutilated ears. Surely, though, it could not be wrong to kill one of
these hated oppressors? Should not an enemy of France be destroyed at
any cost?
As he hesitated, the impatient voice of von Scheldmann sounded from the
schoolroom. "You swine!" he shouted, "are you bringing me food, or must
I come and fetch it?"
The schoolmaster seized a scrap of paper, and scribbled a few words on
it. Then, slipping it between the cheese and bread of the sandwich, he
made a little packet of the food, and hastened from the room. God, or
Fate, must decide.
He handed the food and wine to the German, and watched him as he tramped
down the garden path, to join in the unending stream of grey-coated
soldiers who straggled towards the north.
III
Oberleutnant von Scheldmann sat on a bank by the roadside, to lunch in
haste. Behind him, parallel to him, in front of him, went the German
army; and the thunder of the guns, down by the Marne, told of the
rearguard fight. As they tramped past, the soldiers gazed enviously at
the bread and cheese and wine, for the country was clear of food, and,
even had it not been, the rapid advance and rapid retreat left but
little time for plundering.
Von Scheldmann knocked the top off the wine bottle with a blow from a
stone, and, with care to avoid the sharp edges of the glass, he drank
long and deep. As he bit greedily into the sandwich, his teeth met on
something thin and tenuous, and he pulled the two bits of bread apart.
Inside was a scrap of paper. With a curse, he was about to throw the
paper away, when some pencilled words caught his eye.
"I leave it to God," he read, "to decide whether you live or die. If you
have not drunk any wine, do not, for it is poisoned. If you have, you
are lost, and nothing can save you. The victorious French will find your
corpse, and will rejoice. Vae victis! Woe to the conquered!"
And even as he read the hurriedly written words, von Scheldmann felt the
first awful sense of numbness that presaged the end.
VII
THE ODD JOBS
We sat in a railway carriage and told each other, as civilians love to
do, what was the quickest way to end the war. "You ought to be able to
hold nearly 400 yards of trench with a company," my friend was saying.
"You see, a company nowadays gives you 250 fighting men to man the
trenches."
And then the muddy figure in the corner, the only other occupant of the
carriage, woke up. "You don't know what you're talking about," he
snorted as he tossed his cap up on to the rack, and put his feet on the
opposite seat.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he repeated. "You're lucky
if your company can produce more than 150 men to man the trenches; you
forget altogether about the odd jobs. Take the company I'm in at the
front, for instance. Do you imagine we've got 250 men to man the
trenches? First of all there are always men being hit and going sick, or
men who are sent off to guard lines of communication, and their places
aren't filled up by fresh drafts for weeks. As for the odd jobs, there's
no end to them. My own particular pal is a telephone orderly--he sits
all day in a dug-out and wakes up at stated hours to telephone 'No
change in the situation' to battalion headquarters. It's true that he
does jolly good work when the Huns 'strafe' his wire and he has to go
out and mend it, but he doesn't go forward in an attack; he sits in his
dug-out and telephones like blazes for reinforcements while the Germans
pepper his roof for him with 'whizz-bangs.'
"Then there's old Joe White, the man like a walrus, who left us months
ago to go and guard divisional headquarters; there are five officers'
servants who are far too busy to man a trench; there is a post corporal,
who goes down to meet the transport every night to fetch the company's
letters, and who generally brings up a sack of bread by mistake or drops
the parcels into shell holes that are full of water; there's a black,
greasy fellow who calls himself a cook, and who looks after a big 'tank'
called a 'cooker,' from which he extracts oily tea, and meat covered
with tea-leaves. Besides all these fellows there are sixteen sanitary
men who wander about with tins of chloride of lime and keep the trench
clean--they don't man the trenches; then there are three battalion
orderlies, who run about with messages from headquarters and who wake
the captain up, as soon as he gets to sleep, to ask him to state in
writing how much cheese was issued to his men yesterday or why Private X
has not had his hair cut.
"Do you imagine this finishes the list? Not a bit of it. There are half
a dozen machine gunners who have nothing to do with company work; half a
dozen men and a quartermaster-sergeant attached to the transport to look
after the horses and to flirt with girls in farms; two mess waiters
whose job it is to feed the officers; and there are four men who have
the rottenest time of anyone--they're the miners who burrow and dig, dig
and burrow day and night towards the German lines; poor half-naked
fellows who wheel little trucks of earth to the pit shaft or who lie on
their stomachs working away with picks. And it's always an awful race to
see if they'll blow up the Germans, or if it will be the other way
about.
"There are still more odd jobs, and new ones turn up every day. Mind
you, I'm not grumbling, for many of these fellows work harder than we
do, and we must have someone to feed us and to keep the place clean. But
the difficulty is nowadays to find a man who's got time to stand in the
trench and wait for the Hun to attack, and that's what you people don't
seem to realise."
"And what do you do?" asked my friend as the other stopped to yawn.
"What do I do? What do you think I've been talking for all this time?"
said the man in khaki. "I'm the fellow who stands in the trench and
waits for the Hun to attack. That's a jolly long job, and I've got some
sleep owing to me for it, too."
Whereupon he stretched himself out on the seat, pillowed his head on his
pack, and proceeded to extract noisy payment of his debt.
"That rather complicates matters, doesn't it?" said my friend, when the
muddy figure had safely reached the land of dreams. "If you've only got
150 fighting men in a company, your division has a strength of ..." and
he proceeded to count away on his fingers as hard as he could. Presently
he gave it up in despair, and a brilliant idea seemed to strike him.
"Those generals and staff fellows," he said, "must have a lot of brains
after all." And we have come to the conclusion that we will not
criticise them any more, for they must know as well as we do, if not
still better, how to win the war.
VIII
THE "KNUT"
We were sitting round the fire in the club, discussing that individual
colloquially known as the "knut."
"The 'knut,'" said Green, "is now virtually extinct, he is killed by
war. As soon as he gets anywhere near a trench, he drops his cloak of
affectation, and becomes a reasonable human being--always excepting, of
course, certain young subalterns on the staff."
Rawlinson leant forward in his chair. "I'm not sure," he said, "that I
agree with you. It all depends upon how you define a 'knut.'"
"A 'knut' is a fellow with a drawl and an eyeglass," said someone.
"That just fits my man. I know of an exception to your rule. I know of a
'knut' who did not disappear at the front."
"Tell us about him," suggested Jepson.
Rawlinson hesitated, and glanced round at each of us in turn. "It's not
much of a story," he said at length, "but it stirred me up a bit at the
time--I don't mind telling it you if you think it sufficiently
interesting."
We filled up our glasses, and lay back in our chairs to listen to the
following tale:
* * * * *
"When I was at Trinity I kept rooms just above a fellow called Jimmy
Wynter. He wasn't a pal of mine at all, as he had far too much money to
chuck about--one of these rich young wastrels, he was. He could drop
more than my annual allowance on one horse, and not seem to notice it at
all. In the end he got sent down for some rotten affair, and I was
rather glad to see the last of him, as the row from his rooms was
appalling. He always had an eyeglass and wonderfully cut clothes, and
his hair was brushed back till it was as shiny as a billiard ball. I put
him down, as did everyone else, as an out-and-out rotter, and held him
up as an example of our decadent aristocracy.
"When I went out to the front, our Regular battalion was full up, and I
was sent to a Welsh regiment instead. The first man I met there was none
other than this fellow Wynter, still with his eyeglass and his drawl. In
time, one got quite accustomed to him, and he was always fairly
amusing--which, of course, is a great thing out there--so that in the
end I began to like him in a sort of way.
"All this seems rot, but it helps to give you an idea of my man, and it
all leads up to my story, such as it is.
"We came in for that Loos show last year. After months and months of
stagnation in the trenches, we were suddenly called to Headquarters and
told that we were to make an attack in about two hours' time.
"I don't know if any of you fellows came in for a bayonet charge when
you were out at the Front. Frankly, I felt in a hell of a funk, for it's
not the same thing to leave your trench and charge as it is to rush an
enemy after you've been lying in an open field for an hour or two. The
first hour and a half went all right, what with fusing bombs, arranging
signals, and all that sort of thing, but the last half-hour was the very
devil.
"Most of us felt a bit jumpy, and the double rum ration went in two
shakes. We knew that we shouldn't worry when the whistles went for the
charge, but the waiting was rather trying. Personally I drank more neat
brandy than I have ever done before or since, and then sat down and
tried to write one or two letters. But it wasn't a brilliant success,
and I soon left my dug-out and strolled along to C Company.
"The idea was for A and C Companies to attack first, followed by B and
D companies. A battalion of the Westshires was in support to us.
"C Company Officer's dug-out was not a mental haven of rest. With one
exception, everyone was a bit nervy, everyone was trying not to show it,
and everyone was failing dismally. The exception was Jimmy Wynter. He
was sitting on a pile of sandbags in the corner, his eyeglass in his
eye, looking at an old copy of _La Vie Parisienne_, with evident relish.
His hand was as steady as a rock, and he hadn't had a drop of rum or
brandy to give him Dutch courage. While everyone else was fighting with
excitement, Jimmy Wynter was sitting there, studying the jokes of his
paper, as calmly as though he were sitting here in this old club. It was
only then that it occurred to me that there was something in the fellow
after all.
"At last the time drew near for our push, and we waited, crouching under
the parapet, listening to our artillery plunking away like blazes. At
last the whistles blew, a lot of fellows cheered, yelled all sorts of
idiotic things, and A and C Companies were over the parapet on the way
to the Huns.
"I am no hand at a description of a charge, but it really was wonderful
to watch those fellows; the sight of them sent every vestige of funk
from me, and the men could hardly wait for their turn to come. Just
before we went, I had one clear vision of Jimmy Wynter. He was well
ahead of his platoon, for he was over six foot and long-legged at that.
I could see his eyeglass swinging on the end of its black cord, and in
his hand he carried a pickaxe. Such ordinary weapons as revolvers,
rifles, and bayonets had no apparent attraction for him.
"What happened next I had no time to see, for our turn came to hop over
the parapet, and there wasn't much time to think of other people. Allan,
his servant, told me later all that occurred, for he was next to Jimmy
all the time. They got to the Hun trenches and lost a lot of men on the
wire. Away to the left the enemy had concealed a crowd of machine guns
in one of the slag heaps, and they played awful havoc among our chaps.
According to Allan, Jimmy chose a place where the wire had almost all
gone, took a huge leap over the few remaining strands, and was the first
of C Company to get into the trench.
"Somehow he didn't get touched--I'll bet Allan had something to do with
that; for he loved his master. With his pick he cracked the skull of the
first Boche who showed signs of fight, and, losing his hold of his
weapon, he seized the man's rifle as he fell. No wonder the poor
blighters fled, for Jimmy Wynter must have looked like Beelzebub as he
charged down on them. His hat had gone, and his hair stuck out from his
head like some modern Struwwelpeter. With the rifle swinging above his
head, he did as much to clear the trench as did the rest of the platoon
all put together.
"When we arrived on the scene the few who remained of A and C Companies
were well on their way to the second line of trenches. Here again Jimmy
Wynter behaved like a demon with his rifle and bayonet, and in five
minutes' time we were in complete possession of two lines of trenches
along a front of two hundred yards. I do not even mention the number of
Germans that Allan swore his master had disposed of, but the name of
Wynter will long be a by-word in the regiment. The funny part of it is
that, up to that time, he hadn't had a single scratch. However, Fate may
overlook a man for a short time, but he is generally remembered in the
end. So it was with poor old Jimmy.
"He was leading a party down a communicating trench, bombing the Huns
back yard by yard, when a hand grenade landed almost at his feet. He
jumped forward, in the hope that he would have time to throw it away
before it went off, but it was fused too well. Just as he picked it up,
the damned thing exploded, and Jimmy Wynter crumpled up like a piece of
paper.
"I was coming along the trench a few minutes later, seeing that our
position was being made as secure as possible before the counter-attack
came, when I found him. He was lying in one of the few dug-outs that had
not been hit, and Allan and another man were doing what they could for
him.
"You could see he was very nearly done for, but, after a few seconds, he
opened his eyes and recognised me.
"'Hullo, Rawlinson,' he whispered; 'some damned fool has hit me. Hurts
like the very devil.'
"I muttered some banal words of comfort, and continued to tie him
up--though God knows it was a pretty hopeless task. I hadn't even any
morphia I could give him to make things better.
"Suddenly he raised his arm and fumbled about in search of something.
"'What do you want?' I asked.
"'Where the deuce is my eyeglass?' And the drawl seemed to catch
horribly in his throat.
"I put the rim of the eyeglass into his hand; the glass itself had gone.
"'Must wear the damned thing,' he murmured, and he tried to raise it to
his face--but his hand suddenly stopped half-way and fell, and he died."
* * * * *
There was silence in the club room for a minute or so, and the ticking
of the clock was oppressively loud. Then Jepson raised his glass.
"Gentlemen," he said. "Here's to the 'Knut,'" and gravely we drank to
the toast.
IX
SHOPPING
As the Captain sat down to breakfast, he turned to speak to me: "I
propose ..." he began, but Lawson interrupted him. "Oh, John dear," he
said, "this is so sudden."
The Captain took no notice of the interruption. "... that you and I go
shopping this afternoon."
"Jane," I called to an imaginary maid, "please tell Parkes to bring the
car round at eleven o'clock; we are going shopping in Bond Street, and
lunching at the Ritz."
"You all seem to think you're deucedly funny this morning," growled the
Captain as he pushed aside a piece of cold bacon with the end of his
knife. "The pure air of the billets seems to have gone to your heads so
that I think a parade would suit you this afternoon."