TO
MY WIFE
*THE SILENCE OF COLONEL BRAMBLE*
*CHAPTER I*
The Highland Brigade was holding its regimental boxing match in a fine
old Flemish barn in the neighbourhood of Poperinghe. At the end of the
evening the general got on to a chair and, in a clear, audible voice,
said:
"Gentlemen, we have to-day seen some excellent fighting, from which I
think we may learn some useful lessons for the more important contest
that we shall shortly resume; we must keep our heads, we must keep our
eyes open, we must hit seldom but hit hard, and we must fight to a
finish."
Three cheers made the old barn shake. The motors purred at the door.
Colonel Bramble, Major Parker and the French interpreter, Aurelle, went
on foot to their billets among the hops and beetroot fields.
"We are a curious nation," said Major Parker. "To interest a Frenchman
in a boxing match you must tell him that his national honour is at
stake. To interest an Englishman in a war you need only suggest that it
is a kind of a boxing match. Tell us that the Hun is a barbarian, we
agree politely, but tell us that he is a bad sportsman and you rouse the
British Empire."
"It is the Hun’s fault," said the colonel sadly, "that war is no longer
a gentleman’s game."
"We never imagined," continued the major, "that such cads existed.
Bombing open towns is nearly as unpardonable as fishing for trout with a
worm, or shooting a fox."
"You must not exaggerate, Parker," said the colonel calmly. "They are
not as bad as that yet."
Then he asked Aurelle politely if the boxing had amused him.
"I particularly admired, sir, the sporting discipline of your men.
During the boxing the Highlanders behaved as if they were in church."
"The true sporting spirit has always something religious about it," said
the major. "A few years ago when the New Zealand football team visited
England, and from the first match beat the English teams, the country
was as upset as if we had lost this war. Every one in the streets and
trains went about with long faces. Then the New Zealanders beat
Scotland, then Ireland; the end of the world had come! However, there
remained the Welsh. On the day of the match there were one hundred
thousand persons on the ground. You know that the Welsh are deeply
religious and that their national anthem, ’Land of our Fathers,’ is also
a prayer. When the two teams arrived the whole crowd, men and women,
exalted and confident, sang this hymn to God before the battle, and the
New Zealanders were beaten. Ah, we are a great nation!"
"Indeed, yes," said Aurelle, quite overcome, "you are a great nation."
He added, after a moment’s silence, "But you were also quite right just
now when you said you were a curious nation in some things, and your
opinion of people astonishes us sometimes. You say, ’Brown looks an
idiot, but he’s not, he played cricket for Essex.’ Or, ’At Eton we took
him for a fool, but at Oxford he surprised us. Do you know he is plus
four at golf, and won the high jump?’"
"Well?" said the colonel.
"Don’t you think, sir, that cleverness——"
"I hate clever people—— Oh, I beg your pardon, messiou."
"That’s very kind of you, sir," said Aurelle.
"Glad you take it like that," growled the colonel into his moustache.
He spoke seldom and always in short sentences, but Aurelle had learnt to
appreciate his dry and vigorous humour and the charming smile which
often lit up his rugged countenance.
"But don’t you find yourself, Aurelle," went on Major Parker, "that
intelligence is over-estimated with you? It is certainly more useful to
know how to box than how to write. You would like Eton to go in for
nothing but learning? It is just like asking a trainer of racehorses to
be interested in circus horses. We don’t go to school to learn, but to
be soaked in the prejudices of our class, without which we should be
useless and unhappy. We are like the young Persians Herodotus talks
about, who up to the age of twenty only learnt three sciences: to ride,
to shoot and to tell the truth."
"That may be," said Aurelle, "but just see, major, how inconsistent you
are. You despise learning and you quote Herodotus. Better still, I
caught you the other day in the act of reading a translation of Xenophon
in your dug-out. Very few Frenchmen, I assure you——"
"That’s quite different," said the major. "The Greeks and Romans
interest us, not as objects of study, but as ancestors and sportsmen.
We are the direct heirs of the mode of life of the Greeks and of the
Roman Empire. Xenophon amuses me because he is a perfect type of the
English gentleman, with his hunting and fishing stories, and
descriptions of battles. When I read in Cicero: ’Scandal in the
Colonial Office. Grave accusations against Sir Marcus Varro,
Governor-General of Sicily,’ you can well understand that that sounds to
me like old family history. And who was your Alcibiades, pray, but a
Winston Churchill, without the hats?"
The scenery round them was very picturesque: the Mont des Cats, the Mont
Rouge, and the Mont Noir made a framework for the heavy, motionless
clouds of an old Dutch painting. The peasants’ houses with their
weather-beaten, thatched roofs faded into the surrounding fields; their
dull walls had turned the colour of yellow clay. The grey shutters
bordered with green struck the only vivid and human note in this kingdom
of the earth.
The colonel pointed with his cane to a new mine crater; but Major
Parker, sticking to his point, went on with his favourite subject:
"The greatest service which sport has rendered us is that it has saved
us from intellectual culture. Luckily one hasn’t time for everything,
and golf and tennis cut out reading. We are stupid——"
"Nonsense, major!" said Aurelle.
"We are stupid," emphatically repeated Major Parker, who hated being
contradicted, "and it is a great asset. When we are in danger we don’t
notice it, because we don’t reflect; so we keep cool and come out of it
nearly always with honour."
"Always," amended Colonel Bramble with his Scotch curtness.
And Aurelle, hopping agilely over the enormous ruts by the side of these
two Goliaths, realized more clearly than ever that this war would end
well.
*CHAPTER II*
"Clear the table," said Colonel Bramble to the orderlies. "Bring the
rum, a lemon, some sugar and hot water, and keep some more boiling. Then
tell my batman to give me the gramophone and the box of records."
This gramophone, a gift to the Highlanders from a very patriotic old
lady, was the colonel’s pride. He had it carried about after him
everywhere and treated it with delicate care, feeding it every month
with fresh records.
"Messiou," he said to Aurelle, "what would you like? ’The Bing Boys,’
’Destiny Waltz,’ or ’Caruso.’"
Major Parker and Dr. O’Grady solemnly consigned Edison and all his works
to a hotter place; the padre raised his eyes to heaven.
"Anything you like, sir," said Aurelle, "except ’Caruso.’"
"Why?" said the colonel. "It’s a very good record, it cost twenty-two
shillings. But first of all you must hear my dear Mrs. Finzi-Magrini in
’La Tosca.’ Doctor, please regulate it, I can’t see very well—Speed 61.
Don’t scratch the record, for God’s sake!"
He sank down on his biscuit boxes, arranged his back comfortably against
a heap of sacks, and shut his eyes. His rugged face relaxed. The padre
and the doctor were playing chess, and Major Parker was filling in long
returns for brigade headquarters. Over a little wood, torn to bits by
shells, an aeroplane was sailing home among fleecy white clouds in a
lovely pale-green sky. Aurelle began a letter.
"Padre," said the doctor, "if you are going to the division to-morrow,
ask them to send me some blankets for our dead Boches. You saw the one
we buried this morning? The rats had half eaten him. It’s indecent.
Check to the king."
"Yes," said the padre, "and it’s curious how they always begin at the
nose!"
Over their heads a heavy English battery began to bombard the German
line. The padre smiled broadly.
"There’ll be dirty work at the cross roads to-night," he remarked with
satisfaction.
"Padre," said the doctor, "are you not the minister of a religion of
peace and love?"
"The Master said, my boy, that one must love one’s fellow-man. He never
said that we must love Germans. I take your knight."
The Reverend John MacIvor, an old military chaplain, with a face bronzed
by Eastern suns, took to this life of war and horrors with the
enthusiasm of a child. When the men were in the trenches he visited them
every morning with his pockets bulging with hymn-books and packets of
cigarettes. While resting behind the lines, he tried his hand at
bombing and deplored the fact that his cloth forbade him human targets.
Major Parker suddenly stopped his work to curse Brass Hats and their
absurd questions.
"When I was in the Himalayas at Chitral," he said, "some red-hats sent
us a ridiculous scheme for manoeuvres; among other details the artillery
had to cross a rocky defile hardly wide enough for a very thin man.
"I wired, ’Scheme received; send immediately a hundred barrels of
vinegar.’ ’Report yourself to the P.M.O. for mental examination,’
courteously remarked headquarters. ’Re-read "Hannibal’s Campaign,"’ I
replied."
"You really sent that telegram?" asked Aurelle. "In the French army you
would have been court-martialled."
"That’s because our two nations have not the same idea of liberty," said
the major. "To us the inalienable rights of man are humour, sport, and
primogeniture."
"At the headquarters of the brigade," said the padre, "there is a
captain who must have had lessons from you in military correspondence.
The other day, as I had no news of one of my young chaplains who had
left us about a month, I sent a note to the brigade: ’The Reverend C.
Carlisle was invalided on September 12th. I should like to know if he
is better, and if he has been given a new appointment.’ The reply from
the hospital said simply: ’1. Condition unchanged. 2. Ultimate
destination unknown.’ The officer in transmitting it to me had added,
’It is not clear whether the last paragraph refers to the unit to which
the Rev. C. Carlisle will be eventually attached, or to his eternal
welfare.’"
The Italian air came to an end with a triumphant roulade.
"What a voice!" said the colonel, opening his eyes regretfully.
He carefully stopped the record and put it affectionately in its case.
"Now, messiou, I am going to play ’Destiny Waltz.’"
One could just see outside the Verey lights gently rising and falling.
The padre and the doctor went on describing their corpses while
carefully manoeuvring the ivory pieces of the little set of chessmen;
the howitzers and machine-guns broke into the voluptuous rhythm of the
waltz, creating a sort of fantastic symphony highly appreciated by
Aurelle. He continued to write his letter in easy verses.
"La Mort passe; le Destin chante;
Vite, oublie-moi.
Tes robes noires sont charmantes;
Mets-les six mois.
Garde-toi de venir en pleurs
M’offrir des roses;
Aux vivants réserve tes fleurs
Et toutes choses.
Il ne faut pas m’en vouloir, mon amie, si je tourne an plus plat des
romantismes: un clergyman et un médecin, à côte de moi, s’obstinent à
jouer les fossoyeurs d’Hamlet.
Ne me plains pas, je dormirai
Sans barcaroles,
Et de mon corps je nourrirai
Des herbes folles.
Mais si, par quelque soir d’automne
On de brouillard,
Pour ton visage de madone
Tu veux le fard.
De cet air de mélancolie
Que j’aimais tant,
Alors oublie que tu m’oublies
Pour un instant."
"Do you like my waltz, messiou?" said the colonel.
"Very much indeed, sir," said Aurelle sincerely.
The colonel gave him a grateful smile.
"I’ll play it again for you, messiou. Doctor, regulate the gramophone
slower, speed 59. Don’t scratch the record. For _you_, this time,
messiou."
*CHAPTER III*