Somewhere in France.
Les soldats passent en chantant:
"Mets tes soucis dans ta musette."[#]
Il pleut, il vente, il fait un temps
A ne pas suivre une grisette.
Les soldats passent en chantant,
Moi, je fais des vers pour Josette;
Les soldats passent en chantant:
"Mets tes soucis dans ta musette."
Un planton va dans un instant
M’apporter de vieilles gazettes:
Vieux discours de vieux charlatans,
"Mets tes soucis dans ta musette."
Nous passons nos plus beaux printemps
A ces royales amusettes;
Les soldats passent en chantant:
"Mets tes soucis dans ta musette."
La pluie, sur les vitres battant
Orchestre, comme une mazette,
Quelque prelude de "Tristan,"
"Mets tes soucis dans ta musette."
Demain sans doute un percutant
M’enverra faire la causette
Aux petits soupers de Satan.
"Mets tes soucis dans ta musette."
Les soldats passent en chantant.
[#] "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag."
Grey dawn is breaking over the spongy plain. To-day will be the same as
yesterday, to-morrow like to-day. The doctor will wave his arms and
say, "Très triste, messiou," and he will not know what is sad, no more
shall I. Then he will give me a humorous lecture in a style between
Bernard Shaw and the Bible.
The padre will write letters, play patience and go out riding. The guns
will thunder, Boches will be killed, some of our men too. We shall lunch
off bully beef and boiled potatoes, the beer will be horrible and the
colonel will say to me, "Bière française no bonne, messiou."
In the evening, after a dinner of badly cooked mutton, with mint sauce,
and boiled potatoes, the inevitable gramophone will appear. We shall
have "The Arcadians," "The Mikado," then "Destiny Waltz"—"pour vous,
messiou"—and "Mrs. Finzi-Magrini" for the colonel, and finally "The
Lancashire Ramble." Unfortunately for me, the first time that I heard
this circus tune I imitated a juggler catching balls in time to the
music. This little comedy henceforth took its place in the traditions
of the Mess, and if this evening at the first notes of the "Ramble" I
should forget to play my part the colonel will say, "Allons, messiou,
allons," pretending to juggle, but I know my duty and I shall not
forget; for Colonel Bramble only cares for familiar scenes and fine old
crusted jokes.
His favourite number is a recitation by O’Grady of "Going on leave."
When he is in a bad temper, when one of his old friends has been made a
brigadier-general, or been given a C.B., this recitation is the only
thing that can make him smile. He knows it by heart and, like the
children, stops the doctor if he misses a sentence or alters a reply.
"No, doctor, no; the Naval officer said to you, ’When you hear four loud
short whistles, it means that the ship has been torpedoed,’ and you
replied, ’And what if the torpedo carries away the whistle?’"
The doctor, having found his place, goes on.
Parker, too, one day found a remark which ever afterwards had a
brilliant success. He got it out of a letter that a chaplain had written
to the _Times_. "The life of the soldier," wrote this excellent man,
"is one of great hardship; not infrequently mingled with moments of real
danger."
The colonel thoroughly enjoys the unconscious humour of this remark, and
would quote it whenever a shell scattered gravel over him. But his
great resource, if the conversation bores him, is to attack the padre on
his two weak points: bishops and Scotchmen.
The padre, who comes from the Highlands, is madly patriotic. He is
convinced that it is only Scotchmen who play the game and who are really
killed.
"If history told the truth," he says, "this war would not be called the
European War, but the war between Scotland and Germany."
The colonel is Scotch himself, but he is fair, and every time he finds
in the papers the casualty lists of the Irish Guards or the Welsh
Fusiliers he reads them out in a loud voice to the padre, who, to keep
his end up, maintains that the Welsh Fusiliers and Irish Guards are
recruited in Aberdeen. This is his invariable retort.
All this may appear rather puerile to you, my friend, but these childish
things are the only bright spots in our boring, bombarded existence.
Yes, these wonderful men have remained children in many ways; they have
the fresh outlook, and the inordinate love of games, and our rustic
shelter often seems to me like a nursery of heroes.
But I have profound faith in them; their profession of empire-builders
has inspired them with high ideals of the duty of the white man. The
colonel and Parker are "Sahibs" whom nothing on earth would turn from
the path they have chosen. To despise danger, to stand firm under fire,
is not an act of courage in their eyes—it is simply part of their
education. If a small dog stands up to a big one they say gravely, "He
is a gentleman."
A true gentleman, you see, is very nearly the most sympathetic type
which evolution has produced among the pitiful group of creatures who
are at this moment making such a noise in the world. Amid the horrible
wickedness of the species, the English have established an oasis of
courtesy and phlegm. I love them.
I must add that it is a very foolish error to imagine that they are less
intelligent than ourselves, in spite of the delight my friend Major
Parker pretends to take in affirming the contrary. The truth is that
their intelligence follows a different method from ours. Far removed
from our standard of rationalism and the pedantic sentiment of the
Germans, they delight in a vigorous common sense and all absence of
system. Hence a natural and simple manner which makes their sense of
humour still more delightful.
But I see, from the window, my horse waiting for me; and I must go round
to the surly farmers and get some straw for the quartermaster, who is
trying to build stables. But _you_ are furnishing boudoirs, and mind you
choose, oh, Amazon, soft, oriental silks.
Dans votre salon directoire
(Bleu lavande et jaune citron)
De vieux fauteuils voisineront
Dans un style contradictoire
Avec un divan sans histoire
(Bleu lavande et jaune citron).
A des merveilleuses notoires
(Bleu lavande et jaune citron)
Des muscadins à cinq chevrons
Diront la prochaine victoire,
En des domains ostentatoires
(Bleu lavande et jaune citron).
Les murs nus comme un mur d’église
(Bleu lavande et jaune citron)
Quelque temps encore attendront
Qu’un premier consul brutalise
Leur calme et notre Directoire
De son visage péremptoire
(OEil bleu lavande et teint citron).
"Are you a poet?" the colonel asked me doubtfully, when he saw me
writing lines of equal length.